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CTARIAN SCHOOL-BOOKS 



A SEEIES OF LETTEES 



REV. ROBERT J.I JOHNSON 



AND THE 



BEY. GEORGE W: COOKE 



BOSTON 

ALTRED MUDGE & SON, PRINTERS 
No. 24 Franklin Street 
1889 



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INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 



The letters reprinted in this pamphlet originally appeared 
in the Dedham /Standard, beginning in the issue of that 
paper dated Nov. 24, ]888, and closing in its issue of April 
13, 1889. 

It was not my intention to republish them in this form 
when they were written, and I only do so at the solicitation 
of friends who are desirous that the whole correspondence 
shall be submitted to the general public. They were writ- 
ten hurriedly, and as usual haste made waste, so that the 
reader will find in them some repetitions and digressions, 
besides other imperfections that have necessarily attended so 
long and desultory a correspondence. In these apologetic 
words I speak, of course, only for my own contributions. 

With only a few corrections of obvious slips of the pen, 
or errors of the types, I have reprinted them as they 
appeared in the columns of the Standard. I have also added 
a number of foot-notes. 

It is proper that I should here disclaim any original 
research as to the facts and authorities used, or even as to the 
arguments employed in my letters. The charges brought by 
my opponent, Rev. Mr. Cooke, against the Catholic Church, 
are all of very ancient origin, and the answers to them are 
equally historic. Mr. Cooke has invented no calumny of 
Catholic doctrine, teaching, or practice, which has not been 
uttered a thousand times before ; most of the calumnies that 
he repeats, indeed, are more than three centuries old. It 
follows that I could not hope to find anything original to say 
in exposing them. They had all been exposed and refuted 



2 

times without number by others, and 1 could do little, 
therefore, but repeal what had boon often and bettor said 
before. 

1 ought also to say hero that in these letters I do not claim 
to have explained the doctrine of indulgences fully, nor 
indeed any further than was necessary to make clear Mr. 
Cooke's misconceptions and misrepresentations of that doe- 
trine. The Catholic doetrine of indulgences is, therefore, 
only treated oi' in a partial and fragmentary manner. In- 
deed, the entire correspondence is of a disjointed and 
discursive character ; but for this 1 am not responsible. I 
followed where my opponent chose to lead, and my lines of 
reply have been, oi' necessity, as irregular and eccentric as 
his lines of attack. Thus more ground has been skimmed 
over in these letters than has been effectually covered. My 
opponent has steadily refused to concentrate his argument 
either upon the point originally at issue or upon any other 
point subsequently raised, and in attempting to follow his 
truant lead 1 have been forced into the same scattering style 
of pursuit. Nor do I even now claim to have answered all 
the vague charges, which, as side issues of utter irrelevancy 
to the main question touching Swinton's text-book and the 
Catholic objections thereto, Rev. Mr. Cooke has imperti- 
nently dragged in. Lite is too short, and time and type are 
too valuable for that. 

In his last letter, published in the Standard oi' April 13, 
Mr. Cooke pays me the unexpected compliment oi' saying 
that the style and manner in which 1 have treated his dia- 
tribes against the Catholic Church and her doctrines "make 
it undesirable that he should reply." 1 have heard the 
same opinion expressed by others win) have attentively 
followed the controversy. But 1 had not supposed it possi- 
ble for a realizing sense of his own discomfiture to penetrate 
the consciousness of my opponent. 



I 

It is, indeed) most. " undesirable " that he should reply. 
His is eminently a case for the friendly shelter of silence* 
He has spoken enough already. He cannot extricate him- 
self from the web that he has spun, — of falsified history, 
mutilated quotations, misunderstood and misapplied extracts 
from Catholic writers, manufactured excerpts from Catholic 
magazines, and borrowed calumniations of the Catholic faith. 
Mr. Cooke has practically acknowledged this to he the case, 
for it is now five months since J challenged him (in my letter 
to the Standard of April L3) to produce any Encyclical or 
any other document issued by the Pope, containing the 
words which Mr. Cooke has put into his mouth, and invited 
him to publish the same, when found, in the Standard, at 
advertising rates, and at my expense. 1 gave him the same 
invitation respecting his pretended quotations from the 
Catholic World, the Catholic Review, and Cardinal An- 
tonelli. Ample time has elapsed in which these eballei 
might have been taken up by Mr. Cooke and his quotations 
verified at my cost, if verification were possible; but they 
have not been taken up, for the excellent reason that their 
verification is impossible. It is manifestly w undesirable " 
that he should attempt any reply under the circumstances. 
The old adage fits his situation exactly — "the least said the 

Soonest mended."' 

And yet Mr. Cooke's recognition of the feet that it is ex- 
tremely "undesirable" for him to reply does not restrain him 
from indulging in a few farewell flings, — further argument 
he has none to offer. It is evidently a humiliation to him to 
have the reader'.- attention directed to Mr. .Mend'- pamphlet, 
and to be exposed in the act of appropriating thai writer's 
data fills him with irritation. Therefore he wishes to have it 
understood that his "article on the parochial schools and 
what is taught in them was not taken from Mr. Mead's pam- 
phlet," while he is fain to confess that he did read the 



pamphlet, and that it "did undoubtedly suggest several 
points of which I (he) made use in my (his) article." Quito 
That is exaotly as I supposed. I may note in passing 
that Mr. Mead, in his pamphlet, has much to say to the 
credit and praise of the Catholic Church and of parochial 
schools, and it is strange that so olose a perusal o( its pages 
as that which Mr. Cooke evidently gave should have sug- 
gested hardly anything which he could use except in a de- 
rogatory, depreciative, and hostile spirit towards Catholic 
teaching and practices. 

Those who have perused Mr. Mead's pamphlet do not need 
mo to toll them that not only a great pari of what Mr. Cooke 
has written about parochial school hooks, but also muoh of 
the other matter out of which ho has compiled his mosaic 
letters, including extracts from encyclopedias and other 
authorities, is to bo found in that pamphlet. 

My opponent is very sensitive, too. oonoerning the charge 
that ho garbled his quotations from Maurel's book on indul- 
gences. He insists that ho quoted ''with great care, word 
tor word, nearly a column of the Standard y from that book." 
He certainly did quote it "with great oare"j but his moat 
care was so toquoteit asio convey an exactly contrarymean- 
ing to that which it> author intended and expressed. It is 
not true that ho quoted it : ' word tor word." On the oontrary ho 
quoted some words, omitted to quote other words, and strung 
together the words which ho elected to quote in such order 
and relation that the actual statements of Maurel were com- 
pletely perverted. In my Letter oi Fob. :>, 1 showed exaotly 
where and how, and with what manifest intent to garble and 
distort, Mr, Cooke had broken in upon Maurel's sentences at 
comma points, cutting them in two in the middle, and using 
that part o( thom which, severed violently from the other 
parts, reversed their meaning. His aim was to represent 
Maurel as saying that indulgences were things bought and 



icld for money. Maurel's actual declaration* are, si I 
showed in my letter of Feb. 9, moat emphatically to the 
contrary of this prop'; rition. 

Maurel in ,i t again and again, in terms as strong as the 
language affords, that indulgence <-m never be granted ex- 
cept where in hs Br I been the subject of lincere repent- 
ance and contrition, and has been forgiven \ and that even 
then indulgences only apply to the temporal punishment due 

to in. 

I' pite of all this, Mr. Cooke so dexterously manipulated 
Maurel's text, omitting ;< half sentence here, dropping out a 
whole sentence there, and skipping whole paragraphs which 
were essential to the author's meaning, that the reader was 
led to suppose that this Catholic author fully sustained 
Swinton's slander, namely, that indulgence were bought and 
hold for money by the authority of she Church, and 
actual pardons of guilt, oy which fli f ; purchaser became free 
from ;ill his sins. And now, convicted of this unscrupulous 
misquotation, Mr. Cooke declares that he "quoted with great 
care." What sort of care wa i it that made Maurel seem to 

the rery reverse of what he really says? "Great care," 
indeed ! Great effrontery is the better word. 

In the same rein of hardihood my opponent undertal 
justify bis treatment of Vicar-General Byrne. Space, be 

, did not, permit him to quote the whole of the Vicar- 
General's sermon and interview, as be would have been glad 
to do. Possibly, but no more space was required for bim to 
quote Vicar-General Byrne truly and justly than to quote 
bim as be did, falsely and nnjustly. In my letter to the 
Standard of March 2, J exposed his misquotation of t.h< ; 
Vicar-General, and I need not goover the ground again. It. 
toongh here to remind the reader that Mr. Cook': cited the 
three last lines of an interview with Vicar-General Byrne in 
the Boston Glebe, separating these from all t • before. 



6 

Thus unfairly quoted, the Vicar-General was made to appear 
as saying that Swinton had not misrepresented the Catholic 
Church. Yet within ten lines before the three lines thus 
abruptly severed from their connection, the Vicar-General 
declared that Swinton's text-book was " one of the most 
barefaced attempts that I (he) ever saw to use the public 
schools for the purpose of bringing the Catholic Church into 
odium and contempt," etc., etc. If Mr. Cooke had read the 
whole interview, he knew that the Vicar-General had used 
these strong words in condemnation of Swinton's book ; yet 
he deliberately cut three lines out of their connection and 
thus presented them for the purpose of making the Vicar- 
General seem to hold and express an opinion which he knew 
that Catholic clergymen had never held or expressed. And 
still he pleads innocence of garbling and distortion. His 
disclaimer of obligation to Mr. Mead and of misrepresent- 
ing Catholic authorities and writers recalls a cartoon in one 
of our comic papers, which represented a colored' boy 
brought before a judge on a charge of chicken-stealing, and 
stoutly asserting that he " neber see dose chickens," while 
the chickens themselves were peeping out from under the 
broken crown of his hat. 

My opponent apologizes for his tirades on all manner of 
side issues not practically related to the subject of discussion 
— Swinton's text-book — by saying that at the outset he 
stated his purpose to go beyond thai book and use it "simply 
as a text." AVhat he actually promised us at the outset was to 
show by "a consensus of unbiased historians" that every word 
contained in Swinton's text-book was true. From his first 
letter I will quote his exact words, which were as follows ; 

" Since the question has been raised by Mr. Johnson, I 
propose to say something at another time on the subject of 
indulgences, with the purpose of showing that Swinton has 
not been unjust to the Catholic Church, and that he does not 



misrepresent it-- teadhings of the Reformation era. What 
the Catholic Cburcb teaches now is not the question in con* 
troversy, but what it taught at the time of Luther. A con- 
sensus of unbiased historians will prove that Luther bad 
just cause for the protest Ik: made against the corruptions of 
i!i<- Church. Such a consensus ••■.ill substantiate every word 
contained in Swinton's history." 

More than this, .Mr. Cooke said he was satisfied "that 
Swinton understates rather than overstates the case against 
the Catholic Church at the time of the Reformation," and -till 
more, that he believed that w all the leading historians will 
present the case more strongly than Swinton." Those were 
his propositions :it. the outset. ll<-- has not. sustained any 
one of them. His array of "unbiased historians " has not 
yet put in an appearance. Prof. Charles K. Adam-,, whom 
be especially invoked as the highest historical authority in 
America, has emphatically condemned Swinton's hook- for the 
identical reasons that make Catholic-, object to it. Without 
doubt, Prof. Adam-, i- the most respectable and strongest 
authority named by Mi-. Cooke in endorsement of Swin- 
ton. And what does he say? Why, be declares of Swin- 
ton's account of the Reformation that "the general impres- 
sion inevitably loft on the pupil'- mind i- one of strong bias 
in opposition to the Catholic Church/' that "it doe- not tell 
the whole truth," and finally that " it preaches the Protestant 
doctrine; it. omit- to preach the Catholic doctrine." There- 
fore, Prof. Adam-, (see his article in the Appendix to these 
letters) declares that to compel a Catholic "to -end his 
children to school, or to he taxed for a school, where the 
Protestant view and the Protestant view alone is taught, i 
unjustifiable as it would be to force Protestants into a. -imilar 
position, if at some time the Catholic- -hould get the Upper 
hand and the tables should ho turned." "And if," concludes 
Prof. Adams, " under such circumstances Protestants would 
not submit, it is -imply rank injustice to demand that Catho- 



8 

lies shall ^submit, simply because the power at present hap- 
pens to be in Protestant hands." 

That is the deliberate and carefully considered judgment 
of the Protestant historian to whom Mr. Cooke himself gave, 
at the outset, the foremost place among historical authorities. 
I ask no more than that he abide by that judgment. Paro- 
chial school books, their merits and their defects, have 
nothing to do with the grievance of Catholic parents in the 
public schools, which Prof. Adams so calmly and concisely 
states. Protestants are not taxed to support parochial 
schools ; Protestant children are not obliged to read paro- 
chial school books. Catholics are taxed to support public 
schools, and Catholic children are compelled to read Swin- 
ton's text-book, which, in Prof. Adams's words, "preaches 
the Protestant doctrine," and " omits to preach the Catholic 
doctrine." 

What has become, then, of Mr. Cooke's appeal to " a con- 
sensus of unbiased historians "? What is unbiased history? 
I have always understood that the absolute truth of history 
was only to be ascertained by reference to original docu- 
ments, and that it must be founded on and confirmed by 
such documents. Yet, the reader will observe that from first 
to last Mr. Cooke has never once cited from an original docu- 
ment issued by a Pope, or from any original statement or 
definition of doctrine by a Catholic Council, or from any 
authentic Catholic cathechism treating of the question under 
discussion. Proposing to convict the Catholic Church of 
teaching what Swinton says she teaches, concerning indul- 
gences, by an appeal to " unbiased history," he utterly neg- 
lects and ignores the only genuine and indisputable body of 
historical evidence as to what the Church has taught either in 
time past or time present, namely, the original documents 
of her Popes granting indulgences and declaring the Church's 
doctrine on that subject ; nor has he cited her teaching on 



9 

this question as declared by her councils or her catechisms. 
Mr. Cooke does, it is true, quote from some respectable 
Catholic writers on the subject, but in such a disjointed 
way as to convey an entirely erroneous idea of what they 
actually say. So that if we are to accept the disclaimer he 
makes in his last letter of any intent to garble or misrepre- 
sent them, we can only do so by assuming that the real 
meaning of these Catholic writers has never for one moment 
entered his mind. And who, pray, are some of Mr. Cooke's 
" unbiased historians " ? They include Motley and Robertson 
— two notoriously ultra-Protestant partisans ; Rev. Dr. A. A. 
Miner, Rev. Philip S. Moxom, Rev. James B. Dunn, and 
Mr. Ezra Farnsworth. Unless Dr. Miner is deficient in the 
sense of humor, he would laugh long and loud at the sugges- 
tion that he was an " unbiased historian," and Drs. Moxom 
and Dunn would certainly laugh with him. As for the his- 
torian, Ezra Farnsworth, his writings are unknown to me. 
The Boston Public Library boasts no copy of the works of 
this very rare historian. Truly it is a marvellous array of 
" unbiased historians " which Mr. Cooke has marshalled for 
us ! 

And when, supported by this brilliant galaxy of "unbiased 
historians," my opponent triumphantly pointed, in his first 
letter, to the report of the text-book committee, and said 
that " each member " of it " gave the book a careful examina- 
tion, and expressed himself entirely satisfied with it, because 
of its clearness of statement, its comprehensiveness, its 
accuracy, and its impartiality," there evidently seemed to 
him nothing more to be said. Yet this learned text-book 
committee might have reached a quicker, less laborious, and 
wiser conclusion if it had gone to the standard Protestant 
encyclopedias and read what they contain on the doctrine of 
indulgences. 

It must be clear to every reader that my opponent has 



10 

utterly failed to make good his opening promises. Swinton's 
definition of indulgences is not and cannot be sustained by 
non-partisan history or by " a consensus of unbiased histo- 
rians." To attempt, as he has done, to sustain it by quota- 
tions from writers equally partisan with Swinton, or more 
so, simply heightens the affront offered to every Catholic 
parent. 

Mr. Cooke says in his last letter (April 13) that" all intel- 
ligent people to-day wish to see the world without being 
compelled to use the spectacles of the Catholic or any other 
denomination." Then Prof. Adams being our witness, 
Swinton's text-book is a just cause of offence to " all intel- 
ligent people," for it does compel Catholic pupils to use 
Protestant spectacles in looking at the Reformation gen- 
erally and at the Catholic doctrine of indulgences particu- 
larly. 

" When," says Mr. Cooke, " the Catholic Church begins to 
meddle with the public schools I can no longer remain quiet." 
Nothing deserves to be more despised by all fair-play loving 
citizens than the cant of those who seek to use the public 
schools as a screen from behind which to attack the Catholic 
Church. Mr. Cooke mistakes his mission when he imagines 
himself to be defending the public schools from Catholic 
attack. He, and such as he, are not defending the schools 
from sectarian assault ; on the contrary, they are the attack- 
ing party, and are doing their best to sectarianize the public 
schools. Their direct assault is on Catholics and the Catho- 
olic Church, but that in effect is an attack on the unsectarian 
character of the common schools. They are helping to in- 
troduce anti-Catholic text-books and to force them into 
Catholic pupils' hands. If they succeed, the unsectarian 
public school is as good as destroyed. And on my side I 
return Mr. Cooke's phrase and say that when the public 
schools begin to meddle with the Catholic faith, misrepresent 



11 

the Catholic doctrine, and outrage the Catholic conscience, I 
can no longer remain quiet. 

I do not know how far Mr. Cooke represents in this corre- 
spondence the views of the School Board of Dedham as a 
whole. I very much regret, however, that the Board has, 
by its vote, kept Swinton's inaccurate and offensive text-book 
in the public schools, and that the text-book committee should 
have reported, after a professedly careful examination of its 
contents, that it is accurate and unobjectionable. Such a 
report reflects severely either upon the intelligence or the 
impartiality of the committee, and is deeply to be regretted 
as an indication that the sectarian spirit so painfully mani- 
fest in Mr. Cooke's letters holds sway, for the time being, over 
the text-book committee and the Board. 

Mr. Cooke adds in his closing letter: "I detest all reli- 
gious controversy. I have nothing against the Catholic 
Church as a church ; I should prefer to praise it rather than 
to condemn it." His distaste for religious controversy is 
evidently quite recent. It would appear to date from his 
discovery that religious controversy requires some knowledge 
of the subject under discussion by those who engage in it. 
Unfortunately, he had not this knowledge, as was made pain- 
fully apparent from his pothering about the doctrine of indul- 
gences ; for any bright Catholic school boy or girl could have 
corrected his misrepresentations of that doctrine. 

It is certainly rather late for him to find out that he de- 
tests religious controversy, after indulging in it so freely. 
That this repugnance to controversy is a new-born feeling on 
Mr. Cooke's part we may fairly infer, because it seems clear 
that he had no such repugnance when he began to write his 
letters. He was not requested by the town, the School Com- 
mittee, or any one else, so far as I have heard, to take up 
the cudgels on behalf of " Swinton the historian." He was 
a volunteer champion, self-appointed to the work of vindi- 



12 

eating this sectarian text-book. Manifestly he must have at 
first relished his self-imposed task ; and that he lays down 
his pen with so much dislike of what he began with gusto 
argues that his experience of the delights of religious con- 
troversy has not equalled his anticipations. In this experi- 
ence he is not alone. Most of the assailants of the Catholic 
Church have had a similar realization of their untenable 
position as soon as they have learned something of her his- 
tory and doctrine. 

As to Mr. Cooke's disclaimer of hostility to the Catholic 
Church, and his declared preference for praising rather than 
condemning it, the readers of his letters may assuredly be 
pardoned if they received them with a smile. If Mr. Cooke 
did indeed desire to praise the Catholic Church, he must 
himself look back upon his letters to the Standard with great 
disappointment. It must surely be a source of profound re- 
gret to him that in writing so many columns about that 
Church he has found so little opportunity in which to gratify 
his preference for praising it. 

The text-book being still retained in the schools of Ded- 
ham, and this discussion having been referred to in the last 
report of the School Committee, the publication of this cor- 
respondence will serve the useful purpose of making the 
grounds on which Catholic parents object to this book clearly 
and generally understood. It will at least place on record 
their protest against the sectarian coloring of the teachings 
in our common schools, notwithstanding the general boast 
that there are, and the specific provision of the law that there 
shall be, no sectarian text-books used therein. 

In his final letter, Rev. Mr. Cooke accuses me of " mud- 
throwing." It will be observed that my first letters to the 
Standard were written in a thoroughly impersonal tone, and 
dealt with the question strictly upon its merits. It was not 
my desire that the discussion should take on a personal tone, 



13 

nor was it my fault that it did. I should have been much 
better pleased if the correspondence had been carried on to 
the end on the plane of calm and reasonable argument, free 
both from petty personalities and appeals to vulgar preju- 
dice. But my opponent was determined from the outset to 
drag the discussion down to these lower levels. In his very 
first letter (published Dec. 22, 1888), which followed my 
first three letters, in none of which was there one word of 
a personal nature, Mr. Cooke left the subject in order to 
enter on personalities. I was accused of raising the secta- 
rian issue ; the authorities which I had ventured to quote 
were cavalierly dismissed as of no account ; and I was rail- 
ingly told that Swinton's slander was in fact unjust to the 
Catholic Church only in this way, that it did not show her 
and her teachings in a bad enough light. I was charged 

© © © © 

with " a desire to find offence " in a text-book where none 
existed. In his following letters these flings were supple- 
mented by the imputation to Catholics of a desire to 
attack and destroy civil and religious liberty, of an intoler- 
ant and persecuting spirit toward their fellow-citizens, and 
of actual disloyalty to American institutions. Besides hurl- 
ing this broad accusation of treason at the whole Catholic 
body, Mr. Cooke did not hesitate to charge the Catholic 
priesthood with selling forgiveness of sins for money. He 
dragged into his letter an extract from an anti-Popery corre- 
spondent, written from Italy to a Boston weekly paper, and 
tendered it seriously as proof of the charge that Catholic 
priests are pardoning guilt at certain fixed cash prices. 
This, if true, would place the Catholic priesthood in a posi- 
tion of the deepest degradation. And after offering all these 
bitter insults to Catholics, Mr. Cooke complains of " mud- 
throwing." 

I fear I must plead guilty to some warmth of reply, and 
it may be that I ought not to have let myself repay my 



14 

assailant in his own coin. I certainly regret having yielded 
to his provocation, great though it was. The highest Chris- 
tian ideal no doubt required that I should bear in silence 
with his taunts and gibes, whether at myself, at the Church 
of which I am a humble member, or at the doctrines and 
practices which that Church teaches and inculcates. Hearing 
the Catholic body stigmatized as disloyal citizens, I should 
have meekly forborne from making any retort ; when the 
Catholic clergy were represented as tricksters and knaves, and 
accused of making barter and sale of the pardon of Heaven, 
I should have answered mildly and without heat ; I should 
have been genteel and polite in repelling my opponent's 
slanders, and Rev. Mr. Cooke should have been allowed 
a monopoly of the " mud-throwing." But unfortunately I 
forgot this sometimes, and hence Mr. Cooke's indignation. 
Everything held sacred by Catholics, it seems, was properly 
enough a target for his slander and vituperation, but when a 
Catholic resents such treatment, and employs vigorous lan- 
guage in doing it, Mr. Cooke is shocked at the "mud-throw- 
ing." I regret that his delicate sensibilities on this point have 
been so hurt. But something will be gained thereby if he 
learns that Catholics will not submit to be rolled in the mud 
without making as much resistance as is needed to show that 
they have not lost their self-respect. In short, Mr. Cooke 
must make the best of his discovery that there are blows 
to be taken as well as given in a controversy carried on upon 
the plane to which he himself insisted on lowering it, — the 
plane of prejudice and personality. 

A word is necessary as to the Appendix of this pamphlet. 
In it will be found a letter of the Hon. H. Winn, entitled 
"A Plea for Toleration," published in the Boston Herald of 
Dec. 10, 1888 ; a review of Swinton's " Outlines " by Mr. 
Alpha Child, which appeared in the Boston Transcript; an 
editorial on "The Teaching of History," from the Christian 



15 

Register of Nov. 8, 1888 ; an extract from an editorial on 
^Indulgences," in the Boston Advertiser of; May 12, 1888; 
an editorial in the same paper of May 16, 1888 ; and a 
paper by Prof. Charles Kendall Adams, on "The Public 
School Question," all of which are referred to in the corre- 
spondence between myself and Mr. Cooke. In these articles, 
all written by non-Catholic writers, there are some things, 
of course, with which a Catholic would not agree, but in the 
main they deal with the subject under discussion in a fair 
spirit. 

R. J. Johnson. 

St. Mary's Church, 

Dedham, Mass., September, 1889. 



A SECTARIAN TEXT-BOOK. 

swinton's "outlines of the "world's history" shown to 
he sectarian by the highest protestant authorities. — 
standard works of reference refute swinton's state- 
ment of the doctrine of indulgences. 

[From the Dedliam Standard, Nov. 24, 1888.] 

Persons whose memories reach thirty years into the past 
will note a great change in the temper of sectarian discus- 
sion in our community. Time was, and that within the 
limit of the past generation, when the differences of opinion 
and of sentiment even between nearly related Protestant 
sects were bitter, and when all discussions of these differ- 
ences Avere nothing if not intensely partisan. A little 
further back, and the orthodox Congrcgationalist of Con- 
necticut found it difficult to admit that the Episcopalian's 
chances of salvation were really clear. At any rate they 
did not compare with his own certainties. The Episcopa- 
lian creed was thought to savor dangerously of "Romanism," 
and as to the Catholics themselves, they were held by the 
orthodox to be little better than pagans. Christian charity 
stopped, in very many cases, with them; and this was the 
case with so-called " orthodox " believers who were in other 
respects mild and even tolerant persons. The history of 
religious misunderstanding, to use the mildest term possible, 
has had a new and singular chapter in the record of the New 
England Puritan's zeal against " Rome " and the ancient 
creed and practices of the Catholic Church. 

All this is happily changed, at least as far as concerns the 
exterior relations of Catholic and Protestant. The intrinsic 
differences remain, but there is more courtesy, more tol- 



17 

erance. The real trouble now is not intolerance so much 
as unintelligence. The Protestant is not so often discour- 
teous to his antagonist in a religious discussion as he is ill- 
informed. The Protestant writer seldom sets out to make a 
direct attack upon the Catholic Church. But he is apt to 
fall into mistakes which may easily be more injurious than 
open attacks.* 

A case of this ignorant blundering has lately attracted 
much attention, and deservedly, because its consequences 
may be wide-spread if the blunders are not corrected. I 
refer to a school text-book by William Swinton, " Outlines 
of the World's History " ; and I propose to examine its 
merits, or rather its demerits, somewhat carefully, touching 
first upon its attitude toward church history, then upon 
other points in which scarcely less of misinformation is 
shown, and lastly, upon the qualifications and character of 
the author. 

The inquiry is not only timely, but pressingly necessary. 
The School Board of this town has voted to adopt Swinton's 
" Outlines " as a text-book for use in our public schools. 
It has done this after a professedly careful examination of 
the work. It says, in effect, that it contains nothing that 
any Catholic need find fault with. After exploring its pages 
with such learning and labor as it could command, it has 
only praises for the book. Let us see how far those praises 
arc deserved. 

And first let me remark that this action of the Board is in 
marked contrast with that of other school boards in this 
State.* The greater part of them, as soon as their atten- 
tion had been called to Mr. Swinton's travesty of Catholic 
faith and teaching, and to the distortions of history for that 

* At the time this letter was written I was informed that Swinton's 
" Outlines " had been passed upon by several other school boards besides 
that of Boston. Further inquiry satisfied me that this was not the case. 



18 

purpose which I will point out, have excluded the work from 
their schools. In this they have acted with fairness and 
liberality, and their action has been sustained by the best 
Protestant authorities. It will not be difficult to make very 
clear the causes which have determined this exclusion. But 
how has it happened that the School Board of Dedham has 
failed to detect what so many other school boards have dis- 
covered, — the rank misrepresentation of the Catholic 
Church in Swinton's " Outlines," and its frequent historical 
inaccuracy of other important points? 

The " Outlines " contains, at page 320, the following ex- 
traordinary foot-note : 

" These indulgences were, in the early ages of the Church, 
remissions of the penances imposed upon persons whose sins 
had brought scandal upon the community. But in process 
■of time they were represented as actual pardons of guilt, and 
the purchaser of indulgence was said to be delivered from 
all his sins." 

Is there no cause here for the action of school boards in 
excluding the work? Let us see what some of the boards 
have done, and their reasons for their action. It will be an 
interesting study. Among the boards which have excluded 
the work is the School Committee of Boston, a body cer- 
tainly not less distinguished for the ability and character of 
its members than that of Dedham. It examined this book 
critically, and its text-book committee, composed of both 

The fact, however, that school committees and school teachers elsewhere 
have sanctioned and approved the use of this erroneous text-book, con- 
taining statements calculated to poison the minds of pupils with anti- 
Catholic prejudice, would be no justification for the use o"f the same book 
in Dedham schools. A man caught poisoning the wells of one town 
would hardly be excused by pleading that other men were pouring the 
same kind of poison into the wells of other towns. And the fact that this 
text-book is used in so many other schools simply shows how wide-spread 
is the sectarian influence in school management and how general is the in- 
justice done to Catholics. 



10 

Protestant and Catholic gentlemen eminent for their learn- 
ing and culture, unanimously condemned it. Among those 
who joined in the report in favor of its exclusion from the 
public schools of Boston, was the Kev. Joseph T. Duryea, 
D. D., a Presbyterian divine, whose scholarship can no more 
be questioned than his Protestantism. Yet this is what Dr. 
Duryea and his colleagues on the text-book committee say : 

" Members of the High School Committee called the 
attention of this committee to statements of the author of 
the text-book upon the subject of indulgences. These are 
contained in a paragraph of the text and a note at the 
bottom of the page (320). This note is indefinite ; it should 
have been omitted or made explicit. It is misleading. In 
a text-book which is an outline, a guide to the teacher and 
pupil, every statement should be clear, definite and accurate, 
for the teacher is entitled to take it as such, if he be dis- 
posed, as containing a warrant of his exposition, expanding 
and illustrating from his memory according to his impres- 
sions or opinions, inasmuch as the book is in his hands by 
the authority of the Board. In the present instance the 
teacher appears to have done this, and to have taught that 
an indulgence ' is a permission to commit sin.' This is not 
and never was true. It is true that it has been so repre- 
sented, as the note affirms ; but it should add when, where, 
and by whom, and definitely. It certainly never was by 
any duly recognized authority in the Catholic Church. The 
attention of the agent of the publishers was called to the 
defective character of the note. The committee is credibly 
informed that the publishers themselves were advised by a 
competent scholar, than whom perhaps no other in this 
country has more weight of authority, that the note could 
not be approved as sufficiently explicit. . . . Ample 
opportunity was given for promise or action insuring a cor- 
rection. This failing, the committee recommended that the 
book be dropped from the lists." 

. Speaking in the Boston School Board on the adoption of 
the report from which I have just quoted, Dr. Duryea, 
who is a representative man in whose judgment all unpreju- 
diced Protestants will have confidence, says : 



20 

" If the facts are to be given in a history they must be given 
as they are, and not distorted. ... I am surprised at the 
action of many of those in this community. I can only ex- 
plain it by race prejudice and religion. It is assumed that 
there has been dictation by one religion. I should vote for 
the exclusion of the history in courtesy to the feelings of the 
Catholics. Because a man is a Catholic has he no right to 
have any feelings? I am surprised. It is nothing but rank, 
partisan, religious, bigoted, political prejudice and passion 
that is behind all this matter. The teachings of Swinton's 
school-book are not correct." 

If any one is disposed, however, to cavil at Dr. Duryea's 
opinion, — I believe one partisan has hinted that Dr. 
Duryea is a Jesuit in disguise, — I can easily furnish him 
with an abundance of other Protestant authority in support 
of the Catholic objections to Swinton's " Outlines," as an 
untruthful, a misleading, and, as to the Catholic Church, a 
most unjust book. 

The gist of the controversy over it turns upon its statement 
of the Catholic doctrine of indulgences, by which they are rep- 
resented to be pardons of guilt and licenses to commit sin. I 
venture with confidence to say that there is not a single stand- 
ard Protestant work of reference, with any reputation among 
scholars, which sustains Swinton's libel of the Catholic faith 
on this point. The "Encyclopedia Britannica," the " Ameri- 
can Encyclopedia," the " Dictionary of Religious Knowledge," 
"McClintock and Strong's Biblical Cyclopedia," and the "Reli- 
gious Encyclopedia," are all standard Protestant authorities ; 
the three last named are edited respectively by distinguished 
Congregational, Baptist, Methodist, and Presbyterian clergy- 
men. Every one of them contains an article devoted to the 
Catholic doctrine of indulgences, and not one of them sus- 
tains, or in the least justifies, the slander in question. All 
these authorities, on the contrary, support the dictum of 
Prof. Fisher of Yale College, the eminent church historian, 
who says distinctly : " To say that the Roman Catholic 



21 

Church has ever taught that the forgiveness of sins can be 
bought with money, is an atrocious slander." 

The Protestant press, — that part of it that has any repu- 
tation for learning or critical judgment, — both religious and 
secular, has, I am glad to note, dealt candidly with Swinton's 
erroneous text-book. It cannot be that the members of our 
Dedhani School Board are aware of the general and emphatic 
condemnation of it by papers of the highest standing, and of 
whose decided Protestant bias no one has the least doubt. 
For example, the Boston Advertiser is not a Catholic organ, 
but speaking of the teaching deduced from Swinton's book 
that the Catholic Church regards an indulgence as a " per- 
mission to commit sin," it says : "Historically the statement 
is not true ; theologically, the topic is forbidden in the 
schools." 

The Christian Register is certainly a paper whose Protes- 
tant character is undoubted, and following is its judgment on 
the matter : 

"A public school is not the place in which to teach eccle- 
siastical history. Mr. Swinton half confesses this when, in 
his ( Outlines of the World's History,' he puts the statement 
in regard to indulgences, to which Roman Catholics have 
objected, in a foot-note. It would have been wiser if he had 
left it out altogether. From a Protestant staud-point, his 
statement may be unquestioned. But the subject is one on 
which Catholics also have their opinions. No public school 
board has a right to force on Catholic pupils historical state- 
ments on debatable points which may be said to strain the 
Catholic position." 

In a later issue, the Christian Register elaborated its posi- 
tion, and approving the action of the Boston School Com- 
mittee in regard to a teacher in the English High School, 
who had been complained of for his teaching in connection 
with Swinton's " Outlines," said : 

" The committee decided unanimously that, whatever the 
teacher's motives in the matter, he had made an unfortunate 



22 

mistake in his method of teaching. Acknowledging the jus- 
tice of the complaint, he was transferred to another depart- 
ment of the school. The committee also found the book 
which precipitated the discussion faulty in its definitions. 
The view of indulgences which it presented was given wholly 
from a Protestant stand-point. It did not recognize that 
there was another stand-point. To remove this occasion of 
difficulty, the committee decided to withdraw the book. The 
committee, we think, on the evidence presented, acted intel- 
ligently and fairly, and for the best interest of the public 
schools." 

The Examiner is a recognized organ of the Baptist denomi- 
nation, and surely will not be suspected of a prejudice in 
favor of the Catholics. The following is its view on the 
matter : 

"Those who are ready on slight grounds, or on no grounds 
at all, to come out with charges of Romish aggression have 
seized upon the exclusion of this book, on account of objec- 
tions entertained by Catholics to this passage, as another 
proof of Catholic hostility to the public schools and the 
determination of the Catholic leaders, if they cannot destroy 
the public-school system, to control it in their own interests. 
Rev. J. T. Duryea, D. D., who is pastor of the Central Con- 
gregational Church of Boston, and a member of the School 
Committee that pronounced against this book, advocates its 
exclusion from the schools upon the ground that it is wise to 
avoid any cause of suspicion that the teaching in the schools 
is not conducted with perfect fairness to all classes. This 
ground seems to be impregnable. The theory is that our pub- 
lic schools, supported as they are by taxes levied on all citi- 
zens alike, are for the education of the children of all citizens 
alike. As the religious beliefs of the citizens are not taken 
into account in the levying of taxes, it is right that they should 
be respected in the conduct of the schools. There should be 
nothing in the instruction or the text-books or the discipline 
that would give any citizen, whatever his religious belief, 
reasonable ground of complaint." 

In a later issue the same high Baptist authority further 

says : 



23 

"It is evident that a citizen has a reasonable ground of 
complaint when a text-book states, as indisputable facts, 
things that are disputed by historians and theologians, or 
imputes beliefs to any class that are distinctly repudiated by 
its authorized spokesmen. It is not even admitted by all 
Protestants that the statement in Swinton's history regard- 
ing the Catholic doctrine of indulgences is correct. . . . 
The only safe and equitable rule is this : In all cases of mat- 
ters about which there is controversy, no statement should 
be admitted into text-books to be used in public schools that 
is believed to be false or unfair by any class of citizens. No 
other principle is workable. If a Protestant majority may 
to-day insist on putting into text-books things distasteful to 
a Catholic minority, can we complain if a Catholic majority 
to-morrow reverses the procedure ? The theory of our 
schools necessitates absolute neutrality in religious beliefs, 
and the books must be made to conform to the theory." 

We are beginning to see, I think, that in protesting 
against the placing of this text-book in the hands of their 
children, Catholics are simply asking their Protestant fellow- 
citizens not to force upon them, in the guise of historical 
truth, nor to give their children, as if it were impartial edu- 
cation and pure information, statements which the highest 
Protestant scholarship has pronounced to be false and slan- 
derous. But I will return to this subject in another letter. 

K. J. Johnson. 



CATHOLIC DOCTRINE CARICATURED. 

THE DOCTRINE OF INDULGENCE AS DEFINED BY THE CHURCH 
GROSSLY DISTORTED BY SWINTON. — MANY PROTESTANT NEWS- 
PAPERS ACKNOWLEDGE ITS UNJUST MISREPRESENTATION OF 
CATHOLIC TEACHING. 

[From the Declham Standard, Dec. 1, 1888.] 

With your permission I propose offering some further ob- 
servations on the tone of Swinton's text-book as judged by 
impartial critics. It seems to me important to put the atti- 
tude of Protestant writers clearly and fully on record, 



24 

because it is oreditable to their fairness and to the growing 
historical knowledge which they bring to bear on questions 
whioh have been unnecessarily controverted. Fuller knowl- 
edge, greater fairness, — surely no one can object to these; 
not even the publishers who have put forth, originally in 
ignorance oi' its true character let us hope, the little book 
whioh has been the eause of so mueh misrepresentation. 

'The book itself is not, indeed, worthy oi' long discussion: 
hut the principles which have been raised by it are among 
the gravest which could become a cause of misunderstanding. 
And when the misunderstanding is oenturies old, one which 
has fomented unnecessary discord between Protestants ami 
Catholics ever since tin- sixteenth oentury, it becomes tho 
duty of all fair-minded students to examine and to settle for- 
ever, eaoh for himself, the causes oi' the disagreements 

Let me return, therefore, to the essential subject-matter 
of this controversy. 'The text-book in question, as 1 said in 
my first letter, attributes to the Catholic Church the repre- 
sentation oi' indulgences as actual pardons oi' sin. Any 
student of church history knows that this is now, ami always 
has been, false. What is the true doctrine oi' the Catholic 
Church in regard to indulgences? 

It may interest readers who do not understand the doctrine 
of indulgences to quote an authoritative definition of an indul- 
gence. The catechism ordered to be adopted by the third 
Council of Baltimore includes the following questions and 
answers : 

"Q. "What is an indulgence? 

M A. An indulgence is the remission in whole or in part 
of the temporal punishment due to sin. 

"Q. Is an indulgence a pardon of sin, or a license to com- 
mit sin? 

"A. An indulgence is not a pardon of sin, nor a license to 
commit sin, and one who is in a state of mortal sin cannot 
gain an indulgence." 



25 

Will my Protestanl readers in particular be good enough 
to note how for it La from implying anything like a "permis- 

rsiorj to commit sin "? 
Father Macleod says : 

" I>y an indulgence is meanl the remission of the temporal 
punishment due to sine already forgiven. Every sin, how- 
ever grievous, is remitted through the sacrament of penance, 
or through an act of perfect contrition, as regards its guilt 
and the eternal punishment due it. But the debt of tem- 
poral punishmenl is noi always remitted al the same time. 
The latter is done away with by deep penitence, or by works 
of satisfaction, e. y., prayer, alms, fasting, or by patient en- 
durance of troubles and adversities sent us by God, or by the 
satisfaction of our Lord Jesus Christ and the saints, applied 
to us by the Church under certain conditions ; which applica- 
tion we call an indulgence. An indulgence, then, is not a 
pardon for sin, because sin must be remitted before an indul- 
gence can be gained. Much less is it a permission to commit 
sin, . . . for even (k><\ himself could not give such permis- 
sion. In order to gain any indulgence whatever one must 
be in a state of grace." 

And this doctrine has always been the doctrine of the 
Catholic Church. That abuses of it arose is true; thai the 
Church ever sanctioned them is not true. And to -how how 
generally even Protestant journals of scholarship and fairness 
recognize the fact, 1 will make; a few more quotations from 
representative papers. 

The Boston /u<i<oii is a paper that cannot be suspected of 
an\' bias in favor of the Catholic Church, and which enjoys 
considerable reputation as a critical authority in literature. 
Here is its opinion : 

"The Boston School Committee has dropped William 
Swinton's 'Outlines of the World's History' from the books 

authorized for us in our city high schools. The reason for 
this is the foot-note (already quoted) on page 320 of the 
book. As a matter of fad, it is not absolutely wrong when 
understood quite literally; for many a Protestant believes 



26 

to-day that the Catholic Church sells indulgences for money, 
and represents an indulgence to be a pardon of sins past and 
prospective. But Mr. Swinton's statement really conveys 
the idea that the Catholic Church treats indulgences as actual 
pardons of guilt, and sells them for cash. For very natu- 
rally the second sentence of Mr. Swinton's, being connected 
with the first in a separate note, is understood to represent 
the position of the Church in later ages precisely as the first 
represents the belief of the Church in ' the early ages.' The 
sentence would be unobjectionable if Mr. Swinton inserted 
the words ( by ignorant or unfriendly persons' after the 
word 'represented.' The statement as now printed in the 
book is not legitimate. On the contrary, there is a special 
reason why the teachings of the Catholic Church in regard 
to indulgences should have been presented with scrupulous 
fairness, that is to say, in terms approved by the Catholic 
Church in its official capacity. School-books should contain 
demonstrable or historical truths only, and if the Boston 
School Committee will insist upon this point, the community 
will profit." 

The same paper, in a later issue, returns to the subject and 
says further : 

"The School Committee has dismissed the petition asking 
for the reinstatement of Swinton's History. The petitioners 
and the two ladies who have seen fit to act as the champions 
of the book are unable to hold their ground. The book 
should not be used, not only because of the wretched note 
on indulgences, but also because it misrepresents the begin- 
ning of the Protestant Reformation. A book that publishes 
fiction in the place of historical facts should not be used in 
any school, least of all in our public schools." 

In other articles, which I cannot here quote without mak- 
ing this letter too long, the Beacon points out the grossly 
inaccurate character of Mr. Swinton's book, not only as to 
indulgences, but as to many other matters of importance, 
and says emphatically that it should not be used in our 
public schools, where nothing but indisputable truths should 
ever be taught. 



27 

The Boston Saturday Evening Gazette, another paper not 
to be suspected of Catholic leanings, says : 

"It is folly to attempt to make an issue between Protes- 
tants and Catholics on the basis of a difference of interpreta- 
tion of a difficult historical question. The Roman Catholics 
are quite right in demanding that a public-school teacher 
shall not constitute himself a judge of a question of scholar- 
ship and research so difficult to decide that there are prob- 
ably not a hundred men in the United States competent to 
speak upon it. 

" We hope it was not Roman Catholic influence alone that 
helped in this matter. We hope level-headed Protestants 
used their influence in the same direction. For, looked at 
broadly, it is not a petty question of sectarianfsm, but it is 
the large question of an historical difference ; and whether 
it be decided one way or the other by a school teacher, is 
not the trouble : it is that the teacher did not admit the 
nicety of the point, and remain, personally, coldly neutral 
concerning it. There are undisputed facts enough that a 
teacher may inculcate, and if he be a modest man, if he be 
a consecrated student, he will be very loath to be dogmatic 
about uncertainties. The text-book itself is well out of the 
way, — there are at least two as good as Swinton's, — and to 
do away with the book removes at once the main cause of 
irritation." 

The Boston Daily Advertiser, which I have already 
briefly quoted, will not, I suppose, be accused of undue 
favoritism towards Catholics. In an editorial comparing 
Swinton's "Outlines" with Prof. Fisher's "Outlines," that 
paper says : 

" Those people who are crying out against the School 
Board for its action in voting to drop from the list of text- 
books Swinton's ' Outlines of the World's History,' would do 
well to consider whether they would be willing to have a 
text-book used in the public schools of Boston which could 
be made the basis of a slanderous misrepresentation of the 
various religious sects to which they are attached. . . . 
A reader of Swinton would conclude that it was the Roman 
Catholic Church by which these indulgences ' in process of 
time' came to be 'represented as actual pardons of guilt'; 



28 

while ;v reader of Fisher would understand that this impres- 
sion was created in the popular mind solely by the way in 
which 'the business was managed in Germany at the time,' 
an understanding confirmed by everything that this most 
eminent church historian has written on the subject, an 
understanding sanctioned by every Protestant writer of 
recognized authority in Europe and America." 

In our magazine literature we shall find the same feeling. A 
writer in the North American Review for December says : 

" I am speaking entirely from the point of sight of a Prot- 
estant — a Protestant not only by every trait and tincture of 
heredity, but by every conviction of reason ; a Protestant 
to whom sonte of the assumption of the Roman Church seems 
not only unwarrantable, but well-nigh intolerable. But," 
continues this writer, " the differences between Protestants and 
Catholics are not to be fought out in the public school. There 
are times, seasons, fields for this fight ; but the public school 
is not one of them. Truth is of the first importance. If any 
truth of history is so hidden, remote, doubtful, that we can- 
not come to an agreement about it, it is far better to leave it 
alone than to teach as indisputably true, what, at best, is 
only disputably true. If there is so much to be said on 
each side that neither side can convince the other, the only 
resource is to suppress both sides or insert both sides. To 
force cither side to accept the other's view is mere absolute 
despotism. . . . In the realm of thought is no rule of the 
majority. . . . Nothing should be taught in the schools 
supported by the common fund except that which is ac- 
cepted by the common faith. . . . Whatever makes the 
public school odious weakens its hold. Nothing can make 
it so odious as attacks upon the religious, whether or not 
false, faith of any of its supporters. If the attacks arc well 
founded, they are altogether out of place. If they are ill 
founded, they have no place." 

A Unitarian clergyman, the Kev. Minot J. Savage, in a 
recent discourse at the Church of the Unity, in Boston, 
struck the same note : 

"Were I a Catholic," he said, "I would fight to the bitter 
end the teaching of a doctrine to my child which I believed 



29 

to be pernicious to his welfare in this world and the next. I 
object to my children being taught sectarian ideas by the 
State. We have no right to teach sectarianism in the public 
schools." 

And if we look for testimony upon this question outside 
of the Christian Church, we shall find the same views as those 
already quoted. The Rabbi Solomon Schindler, a short time 
ago, said in his synagogue : 

" In the public schools ... a text-book which should be 
offensive even by one single sentence to a class of citizens 
should be dropped at once." 

As I said in my earlier letter, the original offence in the 
present caso was rather a blunder than an intentional af- 
front. Neither the publishers nor the Protestant commu- 
nity have anything to gain by fomenting bad feeling, and 
least of all in the management of the schools in which 
the children of both Catholic and Protestant meet on equal 
grounds. Nothing is more to be deplored than a misun- 
derstanding here. The heart of the trouble is the incom- 
petence of the men who write our text-books, and sometimes, 
it is to be feared, of the men who are instrumental in intro- 
ducing them. 

"Most of our school-books," says the Beacon, "are the 
work of cunning publishers and the men they hire. Most of 
these books are f introduced ' by a contract that the cunning 
publishers conclude with more or less incompetent school 
committees." 

Our school expenses are now very large, and it is all the 
more important that books should not be bought which have 
to be abandoned. This is a point for tax-payers in connec- 
tion with this matter, which may well be kept in mind. 
Text-books cost money. The annual appropriation for text- 
books is simply wasted when it is spent one year for books 



30 

which have to be put aside as useless the next. Already the 
tax-payers have seen this appropriation used to buy the 
works of a Coffin, and later to purchase Welsh's " Develop- 
ment of English Literature," all of which are now piled upon 
the shelves of the School Committee rooms, admittedly untit 
for use in the public schools ; and to this heap of literary 
lumber there will no doubt be presently added the works 
of Swinton, the great historian. School expenses are in- 
creasing every year ; and the text-book appropriation is a 
considerable item on the bill. How do the tax-payers like 
the policy of buying cart-loads of text-books which are no 
sooner bought than by reason of their inaccuracy, as well as 
their offensiveness to a large portion of the parents of the 
children, they have to be discarded? 

It is deplorable that in cultivated New England it should 
be found so difficult to bring together in the production and 
the censorship of text-books a competent writer, an intelligent 
school board, and a fair-minded publisher. 

I will not multiply quotations upon the points already 
mentioned. I think that I have already cited enough, and 
from a sufficiently wide range of authorities, to show the 
entire reasonableness, by the admission of learned, able, and 
fair Protestant writers, of the Catholic objections to this 
text-book. I submit them with confidence to the candid 
and dispassionate judgment of the people of Dedham. 

The action of our School Board in retaining this book in 
our schools is a clear case of injustice to Catholic parents. 
Certainly they ought not to be taxed for the purpose of 
spreading before their children, in the guise of history, 
statements that falsify the doctrines of their Church, dis- 
tort its history, and hold it up to contempt. As Catholics 
we are constantly misrepresented as seeking to introduce 
into the schools text-books that have a Catholic coloring. 
We seek to do nothing of the kind. We are simply asking 



31 

that the text-books put into the hands of our children shall 
not be such as have a distinctly anti-Catholic coloring, or 
such as unmistakably distort the truth of history and, in the 
words of the Advertiser, convey a contrary impression to 
that which is "sanctioned by every Protestant writer of 
recognized authority in Europe and America." In a word, 
our appeal is from the lowest anti-Catholic prejudice to the 
highest, most learned, and most reputable Catholic and Prot- 
estant opinion. We have nothing to fear from the higher tri- 
bunals of historic and religious culture ; it is only the clamors 
of the ignorant and the prejudiced that we deprecate. 
Surely the interest of no church can be served by the ig- 
norant or careless historian, the neglectful board, or the 
manoeuvring publisher. All that we ask is intelligence and 
fair play. 

In another issue of your paper, if I am permitted, I will 
conclude the subject by pointing out some further grave ob- 
jections to the text-book in question. 

R. J. Johnson. 



SWINTON'S INACCURACIES. 

his "outlines" considered on its general merits, as an ele- 
mentary TEXT-HOOK. NOT ONE CHAPTER OK IT DEVOTED TO 

THIS COUNTRY. GEN. GRANT'S OPINION OF SWINTON. 

[From the Dedham Standard, Dec. 8, 1888.] 

With your permission I now purpose to offer a few obser- 
vations on the general merits of Swinton's much-discussed 
text- book. I have already shown, I think, to the satisfaction 
of all fair-minded persons, that Catholics have a just right 
of complaint concerning Swinton's misrepresentations of the 
history and the teachings of the Catholic Church. This 
much, out of the mouths and from the pens of eminent 



32 

writers, Protestant and Hebrew, I certainly established in my 
letter last week. 

Setting aside however its unfair, because untruthful, 
treatment of the Catholic Church and its doctrines, I assert 
that Swinton's book is a defective work, wofully lacking in 
essential points as an elementary text-book on general his- 
tory, and grossly inaccurate in many statements of facts re- 
lating to civil as well as religious history. In short, I claim 
that no intelligent parent, whether Protestant or Catholic, 
can desire to have his children taught history from a book 
so full of blunders; a book from which, besides, the bare 
mention even of many important historical events has been 
omitted. 

My first point will be one in which I think no one will 
gainsay me. I suppose there will be a general agreement on 
the part of Americans that the United States has enough 
importance in the history of the world to justify at least one 
chapter being devoted to it in any text-book that professes 
to give the " outlines ot general history." Yet this book 
of Swinton's does not devote a single chapter to this country. 
George Washington is generally conceded to have played an 
important part in the history, not only of America, but of 
civilization ; yet there is nothing in the Swinton text-book 
to let the Dedham school boys and girls know that such a 
man ever lived. The name of "the Father of his Country " 
is not so much as once mentioned in its pages. Is that 
the kind of text-book from which our children are at all 
likely to obtain a solid and satisfactory grounding in the 
elementary facts of history ? * Well may the Boston Beacon, 
a well-known literary weekly, say of it : 



* Mr. Swinton excuses himself in the Introduction to his "Outlines" 
for omitting all reference to the United States by saying that pupils are 
supposed to have become acquainted with the history of the United States 
by previously studying other text-books, intended to precede the "Out- 
lines." Obviously the " Outlines of the World's History," by its author's 



33 

"A ' World's History ' that is substantially silent on the 
United States does not deserve a place in the public schools 
of this country. The book is intended for high schools and 
academies. Yet its maps are so crude as not to indicate 
longitude and latitude ; still Mr. Swinton praises them. 
The book is without chronological tables, and otherwise unfit 
for use." 

An elementary history without chronological tables is 
almost as great an absurdity as an elementary arithmetic 
would be without multiplication tables. Yet it is a text-book 
of this sort that the Dedham School Board have declared to 
be what is wanted in the town's schools. 

I venture to quote the Beacon again as to the educa- 
tional value of this book. In its issue of Sept. 22 last, 
that able paper said : 

"Probably the worst books used in our schools are the 
grammars of English; they do much harm, and apparently 
no good. Next in order stand the school histories. . . . 
Among them is Swinton's book, now under discussion here 
in Boston. The friends of our public school seem to think 
that Swinton's History should be retained as a matter of 
principle. But no intelligent student of history would think 
of defending Swinton's account of the beginning of the Prot- 

own confession, is a misnomer, for it furnishes little more than the out- 
lines of European history, and those very inadequately. Mr. Alpha Child, 
of Watertown, N. Y., an able writer, reviewed Swinton's "Outlines" in 
two exhaustive articles in the Boston Transcript of Feb. 4 and 8, 1889. 
Those who desire to get the judgment of a pronounced Protestant critic 
of intelligence on the general merits of the text-book which has so 
strangely succeeded in gaining the approval of our learned text-book com- 
mittee, are referred to an extract from Mr. Child's review, printed in the 
Appendix to this pamphlet. Mr. Child has the same misconception 
of the Catholic doctrine of indulgences as Mr. Cooke and most other 
Protestant writers who have participated in this controversy without first 
informing themselves of this important Catholic doctrine from authorita- 
tive sources. Sharing Mr. Cooke's confusion of ideas as to what the 
doctrine of indulgences is, Mr. Child does not, however, share the curious 
blindness of Mr. Cooke and our learned text-book committee to the many 
glaring errors and the general weakness and deficiency of Swinton's 
" Outlines" considered simply as an elementary historical work. 



34 

estant Reformation, the point under discussion. That ac- 
count is hopelessly bad, and proves conclusively that Swin- 
ton has not read the principal document of the time, Luther's 
ninety-five theses of 1517. Whoever will read them — they 
are translated in Dr. Schaff's Church History — cannot help 
admitting that on Oct. 31, 1517, Luther was a pretty good 
Catholic, and a Papist to boot. Now our schools should 
use accurate books only." 

It is not only true, as the Beacon points out, that Swinton 
has only half stated and misstated the facts about Tetzel and 
the Catholic doctrine of indulgences, but he has given an 
account of the origin of the Protestant movement which not 
only Catholics, but all educated Protestants, know to be thor- 
oughly incorrect. Swinton states (page 320 of his "Out- 
lines") that "The Dominican Friars, having obtained the 
monopoly of the sale (of indulgences) in Germany, em- 
ployed as their agent Tetzel," etc. Now as a matter of fact 
Tetzel was not the agent of the Dominican Friars, but of the 
Archbishop of Mainz (Mayence or Menz). Swinton pro- 
ceeds to unfold the story of Luther and the Reformation 
movement as follows : 

" Martin Luther, Professor of Theology in the University 
of Wittenburg, took the lead in opposing Tetzel. . . . He 
appealed to the people and to men of letters (1517) by pub- 
lishing ninety-five theses condemning the sale of indulgences 
as contrary to reason and scripture." 

In these few lines of print there are certainly two very 
great errors of fact: (1) Luther, in his famous theses, did 
not " appeal to the people and to men of letters for redress " ; 
(2) Luther did not condemn indulgences. A non-Catholic 
critic, before cited, says : 

"In fact on Oct. 31, 1517, when Luther published his 
theses, he was not only an orthodox Catholic, but a Papist, 
and did not mean to be anything else. Like other reputable 
Catholics, Luther appealed, in 1517, to the Pope, and later 
on from the Pope to a council, to remedy the Tetzel abuse, 



35 

which no reputable Catholic writer has ever justified. As 
late as March 3, 1519, Luther wrote to the Pope declaring 
his entire loyalty. In a word, Mr. Swinton's account is 
hopelessly wrong." 

Later in life Luther said that in 1517 he was " a raving 
Papist," and that he " would have readily murdered any per- 
son who denied obedience to the Pope." All this was 
changed ; but when Luther published his ninety-five theses, 
he did not protest against the Pope, or the Roman Church, or 
any of her doctrines. His appeal was not to the people and 
to men of letters, but to his ecclesiastical superiors and to 
the Pope. The theses made no mention whatever of Tetzel, 
and they distinctly asserted the truth of the Catholic doctrine 
of indulgences. The seventy-first of Luther's theses reads 
thus : " He who speaks against the truth of papal indulgences, 
let him be anathema and accursed." 

By way of ascertaining how far wide of the sober truth of 
history is Swinton's version of Luther's relation to the 
Reformation, so called, I commend Protestants who are 
willing and desirous to get at the facts, to consult Dr. Philip 
Schaff's "History of the Christian Church," published by 
Charles Scribner's Sons, New York. Dr. ScbafT is not a 
Catholic ; he is a Presbyterian scholar. But of Luther's 
theses, he says that they 

I 

" sound very strange to a modern ear, and are more Catholic 
than Protestant. They are no protest against the Pope and 
the Roman Church, or any of her doctrines, nor even against 
indulgences, but only against their abuse. They expressly 
condemn those who speak against indulgences. . . . They 
imply belief in purgatory." (Page 157.) 

On this it has been well observed by a Protestant writer 
already quoted that 

"If anybody had told Luther that he was a church reformer, 
Luther would have repelled the charge with an execration. 



30 

And throughout his life ho knew that the CImrch of God 
cannot bo reformed by man, and that the church of man is 
not the last importance." 

Pointing out the general inaccuracy of the work, as well 
as its special errors in regard to the account of Tetzel, 
Luther, and the ninety-five theses, the Beacon in another 
article says : 

"On page 485 Mr. Swinton says that by the labors of the 
brothers Grimm 'comparative philology was raised to the 
dignity of a science.' It is not worth while to say anything 
in our public schools about comparative philology. But if 
anything must be said, it is right to state that Francis Bopp 
raised comparative philology to the dignity of a science, 
and that the Grimms confined their attention to the Germanic 
languages. On pages 22(5 and 227 Mr. Swinton tells us that 
'the speech which arose in the island (Britain) from the 
intermixture of the various German dialects took the name 
of Anglo-Saxon,' and that the Anglo-Saxons became Chris- 
tians in the seventh century.' Now the word 'Anglo- 
Saxon' is a much later coinage; it means English Saxon, as 
opposed to Continental Saxon, and it does not mean a mix- 
ture of Angles and Saxons. In fact, Anglo-Saxon is an ink- 
horn word, and as suitable as if one were to call the people 
of New England ' Britishers.' On the same page we are 
told that the Franks and Goths, unlike the Saxons, adopted 
the language and religion of Rome. The Goths were 
Arians, not Catholics ; the Franks are to this day the purest 
German stock. On page 483 we are told that about 1871 
'Austria and its adjuncts formed a separate kingdom known 
as the Austro-Hungarian monarchy.' Austria-Hungary is 
an empire, not a kingdom, and has existed for centuries 
past. But enough has been said to show that Mr. Swinton's 
book should not be used in our public schools, where nothing 
but indubitable truths should ever be uttered." 

I submit that I have shown what I promised to show, — 
the generally defective character of Swinton's " Outlines " 
as a text-book, quite apart from its demerits as a sectarian 
work highly colored with anti-Catholic prejudice. But 
before I leave the subject, it will bo in order to speak of the 



37 

author as well as the book. Who is " Swinton the his- 
torian"? The phrase has an impressive sound; it would 
seem to be the name and description of a respectable author- 
ity, a high-toned scholar and a man of letters. Is Swinton 
such a man ? 

For an answer to this question let us look into Gen. 
U. S. Grant's "Memoirs." On pages 143 to 145 of volume 
two we shall find a pen-and-ink picture of this now notorious 
"historian," which deserves to be considered by everybody 
who undertakes to defend the " Outlines " as either a fair 
or a truthful book. For on those pages Gen. Grant has 
recorded it in black and white, and insured it remembrance 
as long as the book is read, that Swinton trespassed on his 
confidence, broke his own pledged word of honor, and 
played the ignoble part of a spy and eavesdropper in the 
camp of tne Union Army. He says in his " Memoirs " that 
Swinton reported to the Southern press his (Grant's) in- 
structions to a member of his staff, which he (Swinton) had 
overheard, and that, on a later occasion, the "historian" was 
caught listening to a private conference between Gen. Meade 
and Gen. Grant, and was forcibly interrupted in his eaves- 
dropping. Later still, at Cold Harbor, Gen. Grant tells us 
that news was brought to him that Gen. Burnside had 
ordered Swinton to be shot for some grave offence he 
had committed within Burnside's lines. Gen. Grant con- 
cludes his remarks upon the "historian" with these words: 
"I promptly ordered the prisoner to be released, but that 
he must be expelled from the army, not to return again on 
pain of punishment." 

That is Gen. Grant's testimony to the character of "Swin- 
ton the historian " ; and it is well to bear in mind that the 
" Memoirs " in which it appears was not written in the haste 
or heat of the moment, but more than twenty years after the 
close of the war. Gen. Grant was not a passionate or a vin- 



38 

dictive person ; he was, on the contrary, a singularly self- 
controlled, calm, and magnanimous man. Yet such was the 
deep impression which Swinton's dishonorable conduct had 
left on his mind, that long afterward, at the close of a ri- 
pened life, when he was writing what he knew was to be the 
last work of his pen, a work which would be read by all his 
countrymen, he thought that "Swinton the historian" de- 
served to be publicly gibbeted. That was Grant's deliberate 
and well-considered opinion of the author of the "Outlines" 
now under discussion ; for it was only after twenty-two 
years of reflection that he gave it to the world. 

Is the man thus pilloried by Gen. Grant the kind of 
man from whose pen we should expect either fair or truthful 
history? Hardly. Catholics might well expect that in such 
hands their Church would be calumniated and their faith 
traduced. But they did not expect that the Dedham School 
Hoard would insist, on putting into the hands and before the 
eyes of their children the indignities offered by Swinton, the 
condemned spy, to their religion, as if those misstatements 
were the sober truths of impartially written history. Any 
friend of the public schools who is desirous of their welfare, 
and of seeing them so conducted that Catholic as well as 
Protestant children can safely stay in them without having 
their religious faith assailed, ridiculed, or undermined, must 
protest against the retention of Swinton's "Outlines" as one 
ot the text-books. 

A representative Protestant paper, already quoted, dis- 
cussing Swinton's book, pertinently says : 

" Lei ns for a moment put the shoe on the Protestant foot, 
and see just where it pinches. . . . How many Protestants 
would wince at having Dr. Schatf's statement inserted in Mr. 
Swinton's book, declaring that c the fact is undeniable that 
I lie Reformation in Germany was followed . . . by a de- 
generacy of public morals.'" 



89 

And this paper shows that Dr. Sehaff is not alone in this 
admission, but is corroborated by other high Protestant 
authorities. 

H Finally," it says, " we remind our renders that a book 
intended for a text-book in the public schools must be tried 
by tests which may not be applied to :i book for the indi- 
vidual student. Catholics, Protestants, Jews, and children 
of all nations gather in these schools. A book which does 
not carefully avoid all religious and national partiality ought 
to be carefully excluded as a source of strife and division." 

There are those who fear and deprecate the movement for 
parochial schools. To such I commend the sensible words 
of a Protestant weekly, the Christian Register, which says : 

"The question of the action of the Boston School Com- 
mittee in removing a defective text-book and reprimanding 
an injudicious teacher, has been unnecessarily complicated 
in public discussion with the question of parochial schools. 
We have actually seen it assumed that the action of the com- 
mittee was in favor of the Catholic demand for such schools. 
On the contrary, the influence of the committee's action is 
just in the opposite direction. It assures Catholics that the; 
public schools shall remain unsectarian in character, that 
their children may go to them without being compelled to 
study ecclesiastical history through Protestant interpreta- 
tions." 

There is a suggestion in these remarks of the Christian 
Register that is well worthy of being thought about. If 
Catholic parents are expected to support the public schools 
with their money, collected by the public tax-collector, and 
contentedly to send their children to be educated in those 
schools, the text-books used in them should at least not be 
such as to trample on their deepest religious convictions, 
and hold their faith up to contempt before the eyes of their 
children. 

I cannot believe, that the good sense of the community 
will fail to perceive the absolute necessity of keeping sec- 



40 

tarianism, of whatever kind, out of our public schools, and 
of making a higher standard of intelligence imperative 
among those who govern them. 

© © 

If I have spoken with some warmth upon this subject, it 
has been with the warmth of conviction. The subject is one 
that is worthy of the most serious attention of Catholics and 
of Protestants alike. I trust that the warnings which have 
been so clearly sounded in the non-partisan press will not 
be allowed to pass unheeded. R. J. Johnson. 



SWINTON'S HISTORY. 

THE REV. GEORGE W. COOKE'S FIRST LETTER. 

[From the Dedham Standard, Dec. 22, 1888.] 

My attention has been called to three articles published in 
the Standard and written by the Rev. R. J. Johnson. 
These articles criticise the action of the School Committee 
in retaining Swinton's history as a text-book in the public 
schools. At the same time, they attempt to prove that S win- 
ton is not a man of good character, and that he is not a reli- 
able historian., I propose to make answers to these allega- 
tions, and to show that Mr. Johnson is mistaken in the 
opinions he has expressed. 

Swinton's " Outlines of the World's History " has been in 
use in the Dedham High School for several years, and it has 
always been found an acceptable book.* Last spring Mr. 
Johnson called the attention of the School Committee to 
Swinton's method of dealing with the Catholic Church and 
its teachings. The book was then referred to the committee 

© 

on text-books for consideration, and that committee reported 
unanimously in favor of its retention. Each member of this 

* Mr. Cooke, on page 60, says that the book was not introduced till 
" the beginning of the spring term of 1888." — R. J. J. 



41 

committee gave the book a careful examination, and ex- 
pressed himself as entirely satisfied with it, because of its 
clearness of statement, its comprehensiveness, its accuracy, 
and its impartiality. The text-book committee having thus 
reported, the School Committee voted to retain the book. 

Mr. Johnson claims that the retention of Swinton's book 
was an act of injustice to the Catholic Church. I do not 
agree with him in that opinion. The Catholics of Dedham 
have always been well treated by the School Committee. 
The sectarian question has not been raised, so far as I know, 
in the choice of teachers. A full proportion of Catholic 
teachers have been employed, and they have not been dis- 
criminated against in any manner. Since I have been a 
member of the committee the only occasions when the secta- 
rian question has been raised have been those on which it has 
been brought forward by Mr. Johnson himself. 

Then again, is it at all probable that the members of the 
School Committee would retain Swinton's book in order to do 
injustice to Catholics? Probably, too, the readers of the 
Standard will have as much confidence in the historical 
judgment of the text-book committee as in that of Mr. 
Johnson. The simple fact is, that the book was retained 
because it was believed to be the best book on the subject 
now to be had, and because it was believed to be as accurate 
and fair as any history for schools now published. 

Swinton's book must be judged on other grounds than 
those of his relations to Gen. Grant and his connection with 
the Civil War. This argument of Mr. Johnson has nothing 
whatever to do with the merits or demerits of the case. 
Does the book thoroughly answer the purpose for which it is 
used? That is the only question which needs consideration. 

Mr. Johnson quotes the opinion of the Beacon and the 
Christian Register with reference to the worth of Swinton's 
books ; but such authorities are of no importance in regard 



42 

to such a question as this. They are defending their own 
position, and care less for truth than to make out their own 
case. The editors of those papers, very able gentlemen as 
they are, are in no sense historical authorities on the worth 
of Swinton's book. Let us take up some genuine historical 
standard, and see what that has to say. Here is " A Manual 
of Historical Literature," compiled by Prof. Charles Kendall 
Adams, Professor of History in the Michigan University, 
and now President of Cornell University. Its purpose is to 
give students information in regard to the best historical 
works ; and it is the recognized standard authority for all 
who are interested in historical subjects. Mr. Adams is a 
man of great ability ; and he stands at the head of the new- 
school of historians in this country. 

I propose to quote in full what Prof. Adams says 
about Swinton's book. In speaking of general histories he 
says that Swinton's is a very useful book for a bird's-eye view 
of universal history. When he comes to speak of Swinton's 
book by itself, he uses the following language : 

"Prepared specially for the use of higher classes in public 
schools, high schools, and academies, the author made no 
original investigation in the preparation of the book ; on the 
contrary, he appropriated with great freedom from the works 
of others whatever seemed best suited to his purpose. Mr. 
Swinton is not, like Freeman, a great historian, but he has 
the knack, above almost all other men of his time, of know- 
ing what a young scholar wants and needs. The result in 
the book before us is a work of great and deserved popu- 
larity. It has the extraordinary merit among school histo- 
ries of being interesling. In the hands of a really good 
teacher it might be less interesting than it is ; but really 
good teachers of history are not so abundant as to make 
this feature a serious fault. It is also admirably equipped 
with tables, maps and illustrations. If the student or 
general reader desires a bird's-eye view of the world's pro- 
gress, his choice between books in English should be between 
this and the little volume of Freeman's." 



43 

Here is the highest historical authority we have in this 
country commending Swinton's book as being next in impor- 
tance to the work of the best historian of the age. If there 
is a better book, however, why not take that? For the 
reason that Freeman's book has no maps or other aids, so 
important in teaching history to young people. Mr. John- 
son quotes the Beacon to show the imperfection of Swin- 
ton's book in maps, etc. I decidedly prefer the opinion of 
Prof. Adams, who highly commends the tables, maps, and 
illustrations.* 

I wish also to quote the testimony of Mr. Edwin D. Mead,f 
who has made himself well known among historical students 
by his connection with the Old South Church historical 
lectures. He has been for several years the leader of this 
movement to educate the people in history ; and his work in 
connection therewith has commended him for his wide learn- 
ing, his impartiality, and his historical ability. His position 
is one of entire independence, and he has written of the 
Catholics with great liberality. On more than one occasion 

* By consulting the latest edition of Prof. Adams's work the reader 
will find that in it he has omitted all reference to the maps, illustrations, 
and tables. In the first edition it is probable that he intrusted the exam- 
ination of the maps and illustrations to an assistant, who failed to observe 
their illegible, inaccurate, and altogether inferior character. Prof. Adams's 
remark that Svvinton "made no original investigation in the preparation 
of the book," but "appropriated with great freedom from the works of 
others," is very true. Swinton's appropriation from the works of others 
has indeed been very free — whole pages at a time, and one paragraph after 
another, being thus taken. It is strange, however, that Mr. Cooke, pre- 
sumably chairman of our learned text-book committee, should not have 
discovered the extremely poor quality of these maps. It is calculated to 
shake one's confidence in his knowledge of geography. As to some of the 
illustrations, they are almost as bad. Any reader can satisfy himself of 
the cheap quality of some of them by turning to page 130 of the " Outlines " 
and noting the very delicate ( ?) picture there presented. There are limi- 
tations of length necessary to be observed in writing letters for a news- 
paper, but for which I might have pointed out to the reader the many 
errors with which this book abounds; as it is, I must refer him to Mr. 
Child's review in the Appendix, page 192. — R. J. J. 

f See foot-note on page 55. 



44 



recently, he vigorously protested against the sectarian spirit 
in discussing the school question. When he comes to speak 
of Swinton's History Mr. Mead uses these words : 

"I should never have known, had not the present contro- 
versy prompted me to a critical examination, how excellent a 
book this little history of Swinton's is. J have been espe- 
cially impressed by the impartiality and the rare tact with 
which the author steers through those stormy periods where 
Catholicism and Protestantism clashed — -the time of the 
Huguenots and St. Bartholomew's, the time of Alva in the 
Netherlands, the religious persecutions, now Catholic, now 
Protestant, under Henry VIII. and Maiw and Elizabeth. I 
should especially like to speak of Swinton's warm recogni- 
tion of the services of the Catholic Church during the Middle 
Ages. I should like to quote his high tribute to the monas- 
teries, which were the arks of learning and the centres of 
almost every civilizing influence left in those dark and troub- 
lous centuries succeeding the breaking up of the old Roman 
system." 

With such high and unprejudiced authorities commending 
Swinton's book, can any one wonder that I wish to retain it? 
It is said by Mr. Johnson, however, that Swinton is not just 
to the Catholic Church. I believe the fact is that Swinton 
under-states rather than over-states the case against the 
Catholic Church at the time of the Reformation. I believe 
that all the leading historians will present the case more 
strongly than does Swinton. When I read what Swinton 
says about indulgences and the other corruptions of the time 
I was struck with his moderation, his desire not to be sec- 
tarian, and his absolute regard for facts. Had there not been 
a desire to find offence none would have been found in Swin- 
ton's book.* 

If we teach history in our public schools, are we to teach 
truth or are we to teach something other than truth? That 
is a question of very grave importance for consideration in 

* Yet the Christian Union pronounces it " a perfectly reasonable 'com- 
plaint." See quotation from that paper on page 51. — R. J. J. 



45 

dealing with the young. The spirit of fearless investigation 
into the past is the only one which can bring us the truest 
results of history. We are not to cover up the past lor the 
sake of our own party or sect, and we are not to warp it 
aside from the facts in order to make our own case appear 
well. Let us have the unvarnished truth, and let us teach 
that without fear of its doing injury to the young. 

Since the question has been raised by Mr. Johnson, I pro- 
pose to say something at another time on the subject of in- 
dulgences, with the purpose of showing that Swinton has 
not been unjust to the Catholic Church, and that he does not 
misrepresent its teachings of the Reformation era. What 
the Catholic Church teaches now is not the question in con- 
troversy, but what it taught at the time of Luther.* A con- 
sensus of unbiased historians will prove that Luther had just 
cause for the protest he made against the corruptions of the 
church. Such a consensus will substantiate every word con- 
tained in Swinton's History. George W. Cooke. 



THE CATHOLIC POSITION. 

DIFFERENCES OF FACT AND OPINION. — A BALANCING OF 
AUTHORITIES. 

[From the Dedham Standard, Dec. 29, 1888.] 

In your issue of Dec. 22, the Rev. George W. Cooke criti- 
cises the articles in which, in former issues of the Standard, 
I have stated the Catholic position in the matter of the text- 
book known as Swinton's "Outlines." 

There are some differences of opinion and some questions 

* On page 82, however, Mr. Cooke takes up an exactly opposite posi- 
tion. He there declares that " the Church has not changed its doctrine of 
indulgence since the Reformation. What it taught then it teaches now, 
and indulgences are still sold." There is an irreconcilable conflict of 
statements here. — R. J. J. 



46 

of fuel between Mr. Cooke and myself. The differences of 
opinion I am content to leave to the judgment of those who 
have followed our controversy ; the questions of fact are 
matters to be settled by proof. So let us first consider the 
facts, proceeding from those of less to those of greater im- 
portance. 

1. Mr. Cooke says that Swinton's "Outlines" " has been 
in use in the Dedbam High School for several years, and it 
has always been found an acceptable book." As a matter of 
t'aet, this is not a correct statement. While there may have 
been a copy or two in the High School, this text-book has 
not been in regular use there for several years. This is a 
simple matter of fact : and before Mr. Cooke takes a recon- 
naissance of mediaeval history and gives us his views on 
"the Reformation era " and "the teachings of the Catholic 
Church in the time of Luther," as he promises to do in the 
closing paragraph of his letter, it would be well for him to 
show some accuracy as to the records of our own day, and 
to verify his statement that the "Outlines" has been in use 
in our High School " for several years." To the best of my 
knowledge and belief that statement is not true. 

His added statement that " it has always been found an 
acceptable book" is certainly untrue. Who is it that has 
"always" found it acceptable? Not the Dedham School 
Board, for that body never passed upon it until recently, 
after 1 made objection to it. Not the Catholic parents of 
Dedham ; most assuredly they have not always or ever found 
it acceptable, for it never, has been, or will be, acceptable to 
them. To whom, then, does Mr. Cooke refer as having 
always found this book acceptable? Perhaps to himself, 
which 1 can believe. I suspect that its author might go 
much further in his misrepresentation of the Catholic Church 
and her teachings, and still be found acceptable to the recep- 
tive mind of Mr. Cooke. 



47 

2. "The Catholics of Dedham have always been well 
treated by the School Committee," says Mr. Cooke. This 
statement raises what in legal phrase is termed a mixed 
question of fact and opinion. So far as it is a matter of 
opinion, Mr. Cooke must excuse the Catholics of Dedham 
from accepting him as a good judge of whether they are well 
or ill treated. No doubt he thinks he hits treated them not 
only well, but too well ; but his standard of fair treatment 
and ours is not the same. It has been said that a man 
measures corn by whatever bushel he happens to cany about 
with him for that purpose; and whenever Catholic corn 
gets into a "no-Popery" measure, we aeed not look for it to 
run more than three pecks to lie: bushel. 

Mr. Cooke adds thai "a full proportion of Catholic teachers 
have been employed, and they have not been discriminated 
against in any manner." What is Mr. Cooke's idea of a full 
proportion? Here it happens that we can test his measure. 
The Catholics of Dedham are the parents of a full half of all 
the children in the public schools. About one fourth of the 
teachers arc Catholics. At this ratio, if Catholic- furnished 
all the children they would be entitled to furnish only one 
half of the teachers. It is evidently important to keep a 
sharp eye on Mr. Cooke's bushel measure. Fifty per cent 
less than a fair equality is "a full proportion," as he under- 
stands it. A discrimination of fifty per cent against Catholic 
teachers is no doubt very fair measure for them; perhaps 
fairer than they would get if he were the autocrat of Dedham. 
But why raise this issue, which has nothing to do with the 
main points in debate? 

8. Mr. Cooke says that "the only occasions when the 
sectarian question has been raised have been those on which 
it has been brought forward by Mr. Johnson himself." 
This, again, is a question purely of fact. Mr. Cooke does 
not cite a single instance when I have attempted to obtain 



48 

any sectarian advantage for the Catholic Church or her 
doctrines ; nor can he cite any such action as that on my 
part. Can he name any occasion when I have sought to 
introduce into the public schools a distinctively Catholic 
text-book, or a text-book that was in the least degree 
colored with Catholic doctrines or teachings ? If I have ever 
done so, there must be some proof to show it. I invite him 
to search the record from the time I first entered the Board 
down to this day, and to produce any proof of my ever 
having attempted to give a sectarian bias to its action. 
Mr. Cooke may say, doubtless, that I have often protested 
when Catholic children have had their faith abused by cer- 
tain text-books being placed in their hands which held that 
faith up to contempt and ridicule. That is true. But the 
trouble is with Mr. Cooke's three-peck bushel for measuring 
out justice to Catholics. 

4. Mr. Cooke intimates that it is not " at all probable 
that the members of the School Committee would retain 
Swinton's book in order to do injustice to Catholics," and he 
adds that " probably the readers of the Standard will have 
as much confidence in the judgment of the text-book com- 
mittee as in that of Mr. Johnson." Mr. Cooke's " prob- 
ably s " are wide of the mark. The question at issue is one 
of established fact, not of probability. It was not my 
opinion that the School Committee was asked to accept as 
against its own. The question of the merits of Swinton's 
text-book is not one between the School Committee and my- 
self, nor between Mr. Cooke and myself, as he seeks to 
make it appear. I have not presumed to urge my own 
opinion against that of Mr. Cooke or the Board in regard to 
this text-book and its libel on Catholic doctrine. On the 
contrary, I have presented opinions taken entirely from non- 
Catholic sources. I have cited Prof. Fisher, of Yale, 
eminent the world over as a scholarly Protestant of the 



49 

highest authority on church history. Prof. Fisher calls 
the Swintonian account of the doctrine of indulgences " an 
atrocious slander." My poor judgment may not be worth 
much, but Prof. Fisher may perhaps be entitled to measure 
opinions with the Dedham School Board or even with the 
redoubtable Mr. Cooke himself.* 

I also referred to the leading Protestant encyclopedias, 
including such standard works as the " Encyclopedia Britan- 
nica,"the "Library of Universal Knowledge," the "American 
Cyclopedia," the " Dictionary of Religious Knowledge," the 
" Religious Encyclopedia "and McClintock and Strong's "Bib- 
lical Cyclopedia." Not one. of these works, though they 
are edited by scholars of the most pronounced Protestant 
schools, — Methodists, Presbyterians, and Congregation- 
alists, — gives the slightest support to Swinton's travesty of 
the Catholic doctrine of indulgences. Surely eminent di- 
vines like Dr. Philip Schaff (Presbyterian) and Dr. Lyman 
Abbott (Congregationalist) are not entirely beneath the 
benign consideration of Mr. George W. Cooke, or of the 
Dedham School Board. 



♦Writing in the April (1889) number of the Forum, Prof. Fisher gives 
his judgment as to how history should be taught in the public schools as 
follows : " The field of history is the avenue where doctrinal disputes are 
more likely to be kindled. Of course, as between Protestants and Roman 
Catholics, there should be in the instruction which is given, whether 
orally or by the text-book, strict impartiality, and a studious avoidance of 
statements that might, with good reason, give offence to the adherents of 
either form of religion. Facts should be honestly stated, no matter where 
they may strike ; but never in a way to make a false or one-sided impres- 
sion, or to wound the religious sensibilities of reasonable Christians pro- 
fessing either of the two creeds. For example, the Boman Catholic doctrine 
of indulgences should not be erroneously defined, but should be explained as 
the, remission, not of guilt, but of penances ; and what is meant by penances 
should be correctly explained. The abuses connected with the disposal of 
indulgences just before the Beformation should be referred to; but, when 
this reference is made, the statement should be coupled with it, in justice to 
both sides, that the Council of Trent solemnly condemned such abuses, and 
undertook to prevent their recurrence." 



50 

Mr. Cooke says, with an air of conscious superiority of 
judgment, that " such authorities " as the Beacon and the 
Christian Register are of no importance in regard to such 
a question as this. "They are defending their own position,, 
and care less for truth than to make out their own case." 
This statement is made without substantiation or proof, 
and I think the readers of the Standard will agree with me 
in thinking that such an assertion will not enhance the writ- 
er's strength as a fair-minded disputant. But I would re- 
mind Mr. Cooke and your readers that the Beacon and 
the Christian Register were not alone among the able 
journals whose opinions I have quoted. The list of news- 
papers whose editorial opinions prove to be "of no impor- 
tance " when measured by Mr. Cooke's bushel, includes the 
Boston Herald, which, unconscious of the dictum of our 
Dedham oracle, speaks as follows : 

" It shows the correctness of the action of the Boston 
School Committee in the matter of Swinton's history that 
nearly the whole religious press, without regard to creed, 
sustains their position." 

This opinion of the Boston Herald is borne out by the fact 
I have already shown in former articles by quotations from 
the Examiner and the Watchman (Baptist), the Christian 
Register, and other religious as well as secular papers. 
The CongregationaJist, for example, than which no stouter 
Protestant paper is published in America, editorially said, 
and with a clearness and manifest fairness which might have 
appealed even to Mr. George W. Cooke : 

" The question, what did the preachers of indulgences in 
Luther's day actually represent them to be? is exciting 
considerable interest in Boston because of the transfer by the 
committee of a High School instructor from the department 
of history, for teaching, among other things, that 'in 
process of time they were represented as actual pardons of 
guilt, and the purchaser of an indulgence was said to be de- 



51 

livered from all his sins.' The book, Swinton's 'Outlines of 
History,' in which this passage is found, has also been re- 
moved from the schools. It will be seen by any one who con- 
sults Dr. Fisher's able exposition of the subject, on the first 
page, that the sentence just quoted is one of those inaccurate 
and misleading generalizations which are to be found in too 
many of our short school histories. That there were flagrant 
abuses connected with the sale of indulgences is acknowl- 
edged by all fair-minded Catholic historians, but that any 
accredited authority of the Roman Church was accustomed 
to commend these indulgences as pardons of guilt, is an 
assertion unsupported by the facts of history. In our con- 
troversy with Catholics, we have strong ground, and there is 
no occasion to weaken our position by an over-statement, not 
to say mis-statement, of the evils historically connected with 
the Roman Church." 

Mr. Cooke says : " Had there not been a desire to find 
offence, none would have been found in Swinton's book." 
Contrast with this the just editorial remark of the Christian 
Union, speaking of the action of the Boston School Commit- 
tee in excluding the book : 

" When a perfectly reasonable complaint was made against 
the untrue statement of a text-book on the subject of indul- 
gences, Protestant prejudice was ready to be fired. Some 
no-Popery apostles were ready to fire it." 

5. We ought not, perhaps, to be astonished at the 
graceful manner in which, as by a wave of his hand, Mr. 
George W. Cooke delivers judgment in favor of Swinton's 
"Outlines" and against Prof. Fisher and all the other emi- 
nent authorities who have borne this testimony against the 
accuracy of that text-book. At first sight it seems a trifle 
presumptuous for one man to set his opinion against that 
"of nearly the whole religious press, without regard to 
creed," and in an ordinary man it would be presumptuous. 
But Mr. George W. Cooke has had some valuable experience 
in this line which takes him out of the category of every- 
day critics. We must be mindful of his feat in text-book 



52 

criticism, when in 1885, under the law requiring phj'siology 
and hygiene to be taught in the public schools, he made a 
lengthy and learned report to the School Committee in favor 
of certain text-books on those subjects. The High School 
text-book which was fortunate enough to win the favor of 
his approval was " Hygienic Physiology," by Joel D. Steele. 
Of this and two other books on the subject Mr. Cooke was 
pleased to speak, in a report which he considered valuable 
enough to print in full in the /Standard, as follows : 
" These are the only books which I have seen which really 
emphasize the temperance side of the subject, and give that 
the importance which the law evidently contemplated." 
"This series," he went on to say, "is the best adapted to 
the needs of teachers, because the most simple and practical 
in the information it conveys." Finally, of Mr. Joel D. 
Steele's "Hygienic Physiology," Mr. Cooke said, with the 
positiveness of assertion which becomes a critic of the 
highest rank, "The concluding book is well adapted to use 
in the High School and it imparts the kind of information 
pupils most need to have given them." 

On what grounds of merit was this praise based? About 
a month after the promulgation of these authoritative judg- 
ments, the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, recognized 
as a leading authority of the medical profession, reviewed 
this same work of Mr. Joel D. Steele's. Instead of concur- 
ring in Mr. Cooke's verdict, the Medical and Surgical 
Journal showed the absurdity of its statements concerning 
alcohol, and convicted the author of contradicting himself 
in his own pages. In the course of its criticism it further 
said of this book : 

"The sensational colored plates used to illustrate the 
effects of alcohol on the stomach might with propriety 
find a place in a patent-medicine almanac, but such 
travesties upon pathology should never form a part of a 



53 

system of education. Especially should the wretched plum- 
pudding-like figure at the bottom of the page, entitled ' Can- 
cerous Stomach,' have been omitted, not only on account of 
its utter want of accuracy, but also having no connection, 
either possible or probable, with the subject of alcohol. 
Singularly enough, this text-book is accompanied with a 
circular endorsed by twelve person, not one of whom is an 
expert in physiology or hygiene ; not one, in fact, is a 
physician." 

It was perhaps unfortunate for the Boston Medical and 
Surgical Journal that it failed to agree with Mr. George W. 
Cooke on the merits of a text-book on hygiene. It was 
almost as fatal to its reputation as it is to the reputation of 
Prof. Fisher of Yale, and " nearly the whole religious press, 
without regard to creed," to dissent from Mr. Cooke's judg- 
ment on Swinton's statements of religious history and 
doctrine. It is painfully evident that, alike in the domain of 
medicine and history, there are many eminent experts who 
have yet to learn that the supreme court of criticism sits at 
Dedham, and that its rescripts are handed down by Mr. 
George W. Cooke. 

It is to be hoped that Mr. Cooke will draw his future 
knowledge of mediaeval history from more authentic sources 
than those whence he has derived his knowledge of physi- 
ology and hygiene. 

6. The rest of the differences between us is matter of 
pure opinion. He cites Prof. Charles K. Adams as warmly 
endorsing Swinton's " Outlines." The endorsement quoted 
is, observe, quite guarded and general. Prof. Adams begins 
by saying that Swinton " made no original investigation in 
the preparation of the book " ; which may account for the 
fact that " nearly the whole religious press, without regard 
to creed," finds its statement ffbout indulgences to be, as the 
Congregationalist well puts it, "one of those inaccurate and 
misleading generalizations which are to be found in too many 
of our short school histories." 



54 

Prof. Adams's endorsement of the " Outlines " goes on to 
remark that " Swinton is not, like Freeman, a great histo- 
rian," which is indeed quite indisputable. Prof. Adams finds, 
however, that the book is " interesting." He might have 
added that it is neatly bound in cloth, and can be quite con- 
veniently carried in a book-strap. That would have made 
the eulogy a little more specific and less general. Does Mr. 
Cooke imagine that he helps his case at all by quoting this 
very general commendation of Prof. Adams, who, it will be 
noted, does not even remotely allude to Swinton's statement 
of the Catholic doctrine of indulgence, to which, evidently, 
his attention was not directed when he wrote? Yet that, and 
that only, is the question at issue between Mr. Cooke on the 
one hand, and " nearly the whole religious press, without 
regard to creed," on the other. It may be observed that 
Prof. Adams could hardly have said less than that the book 
was "interesting." Yet he calls this "its extraordinary 
merit" — that it is "interesting." This recalls forcibly the 
story of the author who sent President Lincoln a copy of his 
book, with a request that he would kindly write him his 
opinion of it. Mr. Lincoln good-naturedly, but cautiously, 
complied with the request, and gave his critical opinion in 
these words : " I have read the volume you sent me, and I 
take pleasure in saying that for those who like such a sort of 
book as this is, it will be exactly the sort of book that they 
would like." I am willing to say as much as that myself for 
Swinton's " Outlines," and Prof. Adams does not say a great 
deal more. 

What does Prof. Adams really say upon the question in 
debate? In a long article on the public-school question, 
Dec. 13, 1888, he says, speaking of Swinton's account of the 
Reformation : , 

" While it might not be easy to point out a single positive 
misstatement in Swinton's narrative, the general impression 
inevitably left upon the pupil's mind is one of strong bias in 



55 

opposition to the Catholic Church, and in favor of Luther. 
It may tell the truth, hut it does not tell the whole truth ; 
and this is equivalent to saying that it tells a partial truth, 
and presents it in such a way as at least to have the effect of 
a partial falsehood. It preaches the Protestant doctrine ; it 
omits to preach the Catholic doctrine." 

Truly Mr. Cooke's effort to prove Swinton's hook unsecta- 
rian has cost him much. It is a useless struggle against the 
truth. 

The opinion of Mr. Edwin D. Mead, who is the only other 
person Mr. Cooke can iind to say a good word for this book, 
I shall not permit myself to discuss.* 

The weight of the authorities I have cited in this and my 
former articles is not seriously shaken by the quite general 
remarks quoted from Prof. Adams, and in no way offset by 
the assertion of Mr. Mead. The deliberate judgment of 
"nearly the whole religious press, without regard to creed," 
is, as I have shown, that Swinton's statement of the doctrine 
of indulgences is a slanderous misrepresentation of Catholic 
faith and teaching. That is enough to justify the Catholic 
complaint against it. To retain it in the schools of Dedham 
is to inflict insult and injustice upon every child in whose 
hands it is placed. 

Mr. Cooke insists that Gen. Grant's opinion of Swinton 
has nothing to do with the merits or demerits of his text- 

* I cheerfully recognize the able character of Mr. Mead's pamphlet, 
which has been so extremely useful to my opponent. But, skilful and 
polished writer though he is, Mr. Meacl simply does not comprehend the 
doctrine of indulgence as the Catholic Church teaches it. A Protestant 
authority justifies me in this assertion. The Rev. C. C. Starbuck, than whom 
there is no stifl'er champion of Protestantism, in the Christian Mirror of 
April 20, 1889, declares Dr. Hedge's notions, and Mr. Mead's after him, 
respecting the Roman Catholic doctrine of the forgiveness of sins, to be 
in what Mrs. Nickleby would have called "a hopeless state of conglom- 
eration." 

I regret that Mr. Mead, who has made so candid and courageous a 
speech, should be no better informed on the doctrines of the Catholic 
Church. 



56 

hook. Why not? Swinton is being discussed as an historian ; 
but has the character of a writer nothing to do with the 
quality of his work? Is an honest author no better than 
a dishonest one? Is it quite immaterial what the reputation 
of an historian is for veracity? Is it true that a dishonor- 
able, un veracious man is just as likely to write high-toned, 
truthful history as a man with a high sense of honor and 
a scrupulous regard for truth ? These questions answer 
themselves, and Mr. Cooke merely trifles with the intelli- 
gence of your readers when he pretends to say that Swin- 
ton's character as a man of honor and truth has "nothing 
whatever to do with the merits or demerits of the case." It 
has a great deal to do with them. Gen. Grant shows in his 
" Memoirs " that Swinton was an eavesdropper and a spy, a 
man who abused the confidence placed in him, who broke his 
plighted word, and who proved himself so utterly untrust- 
worthy that he was adjudged worthy of the shameful death 
awarded under military law to men who behave with conspicu- 
ous baseness and treachery. Mr. Cooke may think it of no 
consequence whether our school-books are written by men of 
that stamp, or by men of strict honor and rectitude ; but as I 
have said, this is a matter upon which there is a difference of 
opinion. 

I invite Mr. Cooke to take note of the fact that it is not 
my opinion of Swinton's text-book that he is called upon to 
meet. It is with the opinion of non-Catholic papers like the 
Congregationalist and Christian Union just quoted, that he 
is in collision. And as the Boston Herald says, "nearly the 
whole religious press, without regard to creed," has endorsed 
that opinion. I know and feel, and humbly acknowledge, that 
Mr. Cooke's three-peck bushel is a very copious measure ; 
but after all I may be allowed to doubt whether the light of 
" nearly the whole religious press, without regard to creed,'' 
can be successfully smothered under its inverted bottom. 



57 

Mr. Cooke says he will hereafter write about Luther and 
the Reformation era. He will prove that Luther did this, 
that, and the other thing, and had good cause for doing it. 
Mr. Cooke is welcome to educate himself in public. His 
studies in history will be received with interest and edifica- 
tion. But when he announces that he will undertake to 
prove that "a consensus of unbiased historians . . . will 
substantiate every word contained in Swinton's history," he 
shows himself to be one of those persons — alas, too nu- 
merous — whom it is necessary to instruct before one can 
argue with them. "With ignorance," says Schiller, "the 
very gods contend in vain." Let Mr. Cooke sit quietly in 
his study for a while ; let him learn something of the history 
of the Lutheran epoch ; and Mr. Cooke will find that he has 
undertaken a contract which neither he nor any other man 
can carry out. 

I have now responded to the main points that have been 
raised in the present discussion. But I cannot enter into a 
set controversy with him, or with any other man ; and I 
shall decline to follow him over the broad fields of Lutheran 
history upon which he proposes to enter for the first time. 
I shall hold him strictly to the one vital point in the debate, 
— the doctrine of the Catholic Church in regard to in- 
dulgences. 

Swinton's " Outlines " contains this statement : 

" These indulgences were, in the early ages of the Church, 
remissions of the penances imposed upon persons whose sins 
had brought scandal upon the community. But in process 
of time they were represented as actual pardons of guilt, and 
the purchaser of indulgence was said to be delivered from all 
his sins." 

To say, as this statement implies, that the Catholic Church 
ever taught that an indulgence was a pardon of sin, or a per- 
mission to commit sin, is a libel on the Catholic Church, and 



58 

a slanderous distortion of its doctrine. It represents the 
Catholic Church as teaching what she never taught. It 
travesties her tenets and caricatures the faith of her mem- 
bers. Let Mr. George W. Cooke observe that until he can 
show this to be a true statement of the Catholic doctrine of 
indulgences (which every Protestant scholarly authority, and 
rf nearly the whole religious press, without regard to creed," 
agree in saying it is not), until then he cannot by any 
amount of literary labor among the historians of the Lu- 
theran epoch " substantiate every word contained in Swinton's 
History." The statement above quoted from Swinton con- 
tains a falsehood, and implies more falsehoods. While I 
cannot permit myself to be drawn into controversy upon 
irrelevant points, I await with composure and curiosity the 
promised effort of Mr. Cooke to prove the historical truth of 
a lie. E. J. Johnson. 



A DEFENCE OF SWINTON. 

LETTER FROM THE REV. GEORGE W. COOKE. 
[From the Dedham Standard, Jan. 19, 1889.] 

The debate about Swinton's " Outlines of History " is only 
a symptom, and not the disease itself. So much has been 
said against the use of that book in the public schools, it is 
desirable that the cause of opposition to it have a thor- 
ough examination. In seeking that cause it may be well 
to look beyond the book itself, that the motives may be 
discovered of those who oppose it. Such an examination is 
demanded, not in the interest of Swinton's book, which is 
quite able to take care of itself, but in the interest of the 
public schools. 

Americans believe in the public school, for it is the sus- 
taining agent of all that is good in their institutions. Every 



59 

attack upon the public school is an attack upon all that goes 
to make up American freedom and prosperity. The attack 
upon Swinton's book is simply a disguised attack upon the 
public school, and in the interest of the parochial school. 
Whoever examines the subject on all sides, and with an 
unprejudiced mind, cannot well arrive at any other con- 
clusion. 

I have no prejudice against the Catholic Church.* I wish 
it well in every good work it is doing. I thoroughly 
believe in the public schools, however, — in their aims, in 
their methods, and in their results. When the Catholic 
Church attacks the public schools, and seeks to destroy 
them, as a loyal American I am bound to oppose the Catho- 
lic Church in that and every similar attempt which it makes. 
In saying that the Catholic Church is opposed to the public 
schools I appeal to the facts of history, and not to any preju- 
dices of my own. 

In what follows I appeal to facts. They are incontrovert- 
ible. I appeal to the great historians, and to the statements 
of the Catholic Church itself. Swinton's book is my text : 
but what the opposition to that means can only be under- 
stood in the light of what the Catholic Church is doing 
everywhere in regard to the subject of education. The 
Catholic Church does not approve of the American methods 
of education. That is why it is opposed to Swinton's book. 

* This will be readily recognized as a stereotyped phrase of the Pope- 
haters. They are always prefacing their diatribes with declarations of 
the love of fairness and justice. "I have no prejudice against the Cath- 
olic Church," are words that simply express Mr. Cooke's concession to 
this habit of making protestations of liberality. 

If, in reality, he had no prejudice against the Catholic Church, he 
would have at least abstained from grossly misrepresenting her. His 
claim of a disposition to be fair is simply the meaningless platitude which 
every defamer of the Catholic Church employs before making an unusual 
display of narrowness and intolerance. — R. J. J. 



60 



Swinton in the Dedham High School. 

At the beginning of the spring term of 1888, Swinton's 
" Outlines of the World's History " was introduced into the 
Dedham High School.* The request for it came from Miss 
Storms, approved by Mr. Slafter, who, at that time, had 
never heard of any objection to the book as being sectarian 
in its character and influence. When this request was 
made to Mr. Crocker, then the superintendent of schools, it 
was not possible to secure its approval immediately by the 
School Committee. As it seemed desirable to have it at 
once, Mr. Crocker procured a few copies of the book, and 
its study was entered upon in Miss Storms's room. This 
method of introducing a new book may have been irregular, 
but it was in accordance with all the precedents of the 
School Committee. The part taken in the transaction by 
Mr. Slafter, Miss Storms, and Mr. Crocker is a sufficient 
guarantee that there was not the slightest purpose of intro- 
ducing into the High School a book not proper in its char- 
acter or incorrect in its teachings. 

Very soon after the introduction of the book a request 
by the Rev. R. J. Johnson was made to Mr. Channell, 
who had then become the superintendent, that Swinton's 
book be removed from the High School until the School 
Committee should take action upon it. This request was 
granted by Mr. Channell, and the book was removed. The 
text-book committee, consisting of Messrs. Cooke, Kimball, 
and Wakefield, carefully examined the book, held a meeting 
for its consideration, and unanimously voted to approve it. 
When this action was reported to the School Committee, the 
book was regularly adopted as a text-book for the High 

* Yet on page 40 Mr. Cooke says the book " has been in use in the Ded- 
ham High School for several years past." — R. J. J. 



61 

School. At the same time, Mrs. Abrahams had used, merely 
as a book of reference for her class in English literature, 
two copies of Welsh's "Development of English Literature." 
Objection was also made to that book, and the School Com- 
mittee voted that its use should not be continued in the 
High School. 

As the reader may see by the letter of Miss Storms, pub- 
lished in the Standard, of last week, no reference whatever 
had been made to indulgences in her class, when the request 
to withdraw the book was presented. Miss Storms emphat- 
ically declares that her " definition of indulgences was never 
asked for nor given." 

During the spring term of 1888 the subject of indulgences 
presented itself in Mrs. Abrahams's class in English litera- 
ture. While Chaucer's " Canterbury Tales " were being 
briefly referred to by the teacher, she said that Chaucer was 
considered to have favored the Reformation, judging by his 
satires on the friars and pardoners (a word used by Chaucer 
in his poems), and by his sympathy with the Wicliffites. A 
member of the class asked who the pardoners were ; and, on - 
being told that they were those who sold pardons or indul- 
gences, asked what were indulgences. The teacher defined 
indulgences in the briefest manner, as she understood them. 
Mrs. Abrahams in no way intruded upon the private opinions 
of Catholics, but referred her pupils to the standard author- 
ities. On the authority of Mr. Slafter, I am able to say 
that on no occasion since he has been connected with the 
Hisrh School have the beliefs of Catholics been discussed or 
intruded upon in that school, so far as he knows. 

From the foregoing statement of facts it would appear 
that not the slightest attempt has been made by the School 
Committee, or by the teachers of the High School, to intro- 
duce the sectarian question into the public schools of Ded- 
ham. If it is said that the introduction of Swinton's book 



62 

was in itself a sectarian action, then what follows is my 
answer to that charge. 

II. 

"Where Swinton's Book is used. 

It has been said that a greater part of the school boards 
of Massachusetts excluded Swinton's book from their schools, 
"when their attention had been called to Mr. Swinton's 
travesty of Catholic faith and teaching." * The fact is, that 
Boston is the only place where such action has been taken ; 
and in that city one half the members of the School Board 
were Catholics at the time.f Swinton's History is used in 
more than one hundred cities and towns in Massachusetts, 
and it is used in very nearly every high school in the State. 
It is used in the following towns and cities at the present 
time : Brockton, Chelsea, Concord, Cambridge, Fall River, 
Gardner, Hingham, Holyoke, Hyde Park, Hudson, Leom- 
inster, Lynn, Maiden, Marlboro', Milford, North Adams, 
New Bedford, Newton, Quincy, Springfield, Somerville r 
'Salem, Watertown, Waltham, Worcester, and several others. 

In the State of Maine Swinton's History is used in Bath, 
Bangor, Castine, Lewiston, Biddeford, Saco, Waterville, 
Portland, Calais, Houlton, and many other places of impor- 
tance. In New Hampshire it is used in Dover, Keene, 
Manchester, Nashua, Concord, Portsmouth, and right on 
through the State. In Vermont it is used in Brattleboro, 
Bennington, Montpelier, Burlington, Rutland, St. Johns- 
bury, and in almost every other town and city. During the 
year 1888, Swinton's History was for the first time intro- 
duced into about twenty New England towns. These include 
Easton, Andover, Dedham, and the Westfield Normal School, 
in Massachusetts ; Newcastle, Gorham, Kingston, Machias- 

* See foot-note on pages 17 and 18. — E. J. J. 
f This statement is incorrect. — R. J. J. 



63 

port, Pembroke, Greenville and the Farmington State Nor- 
mal School, in Maine ; and Pawtucket in Rhode Island. 

Swinton's History is not only popular in New England, but 
it is quite as popular in most other parts of the country. It 
is the most popular and best selling high-school text-book 
now published in the United States. It is used at the pres- 
ent time in more than nine tenths of the high schools in this 
country ; and in a great proportion of the academies, semina- 
ries, and normal schools where the course of study calls for 
the use of such a book. 

Whatever may be said about Swinton's " Outlines of His- 
tory " by the newspapers, secular or religious, it is emphat- 
ically approved by the teachers of the country. They find 
it the best text-book on history they can procure ; and they 
evidently accept its teachings as being correct. As a body, 
the teachers in the high schools of the country are quite 
likely to know what is historically true.* 

III. 

Swinton on the Catholic Church. 

Swinton's History is remarkably well written for a text- 
book. It is concise, graphic in style, brings out the salient 
facts, and makes history a living reality for the pupil. | He 
gives the dates and the leading facts, but in a manner to 
impress them upon the pupil, and to make him feel that his- 
tory is not a mere succession of dates and events. It is 

* See closing paragraphs of Mr. Child's review, pages 200, 201. — R. J. J. 

t Contrast this opinion with that of Mr. Child, whose review of the 
book is reprinted in the Appendix, page 192. In this review Mr. Child, 
after pointing out the many errors in Swinton's " Outlines," its omissions 
of important matters, and its heedless blunders, declares that it comes 
within the application of the excellent doctrine laid down by the Boston 
Transcript, that "being false, it is not a fit text-book for American 
youth." While giving his opinion of Swinton's style, Mr. Cooke might 
have gone on and said with truth that the " Outlines " abounds in gram- 
matical errors, which, in many cases, make it extremely difficult to under- 
stand what he means to say. — R. J. J. 



64 

written in a very attractive manner, and yet it is so arranged 
as to be remarkably fitted for use in the school-room. Not 
only has Swinton made a well-arranged text-book, but he has 
grasped and mastered the great events of history so as to 
present them in a vivid and in a highly suggestive manner. 
He displays genuine qualities as a historian, clearness of con- 
ception, mastery of events in their larger relations, and an 
active insight into the more intricate and important meanings 
of history. The book is in every way well fitted to give the 
pupil an outline knowledge of the history of the world. These 
qualities of ability, fairness, and historic insight should be 
taken into consideration in deciding whether Swinton's book 
is one which ought to be retained in the public schools. 

Does Swinton misrepresent the teachings of the Catholic 
Church? as has been charged. In answering this question, 
it is best to appeal to the book itself. Those paragraphs of 
Swinton's book which have been the cause of controversy 
are on pages 319 and 320, and they will be cited in full, in 
order that the reader may have an opportunity of judging of 
the merits of the case : 

"It happened very soon after the beginning of the sixteenth 
century, that great controversies on matters of religion arose. 
There was complaint at many practical abuses in the Church, 
and at the claims of the Popes to interfere in the aftairs of 
nations ; and there was also a growing feeling among many 
that not a few of the doctrines which were believed, and of 
the ceremonies which were practised, in the Church, were 
contrary to Scripture. 

"It was in this state of affairs that there arose a dispute, 
trivial indeed in its nature, but which kindled a flame that 
quickly spread over most of Western Europe. When Leo 
X. came to the papal chair, he found the treasury of the 
Church exhausted by the ambitious projects of his predeces- 
sors. He therefore had recourse to every means which inge- 
nuity could devise for recruiting his exhausted finances, and 
among these he adopted an extensive sale of indulgences, 
which in former ages had been a source of large profits to the 
Church. The Dominican friars, having obtained the oionop- 



65 

oly of the sale in Germany, employed as their agent Tetzel, 
one of their own order, who carried on the traffic in a manner 
that was very offensive, and especially so to the Augustinian 
friars. 

" One of these, named Martin Luther, professor of theology 
in the University of Wittenberg, took the lead in opposing 
Tetzel. Having vainly sought to procure the suppression of 
the traffic from the Archbishop of Magdeburg, he appealed 
to the people and to men of letters (1517), by publishing 
ninety-five theses condemning the sale of indulgences as con- 
trary to reason and Scripture. 

"These indulgences were, in the early ages of the Church, 
remissions of the penances imposed upon persons whose sins 
had brought scandal on the community. But in process of 
time they were represented as actual pardons of guilt, and 
the purchaser of indulgence was said to be delivered from 
all his sins." 

This is Swinton's account of the origin of Protestantism ; 
and the foot-note is the chief cause of complaint by Catholics. 
A careful and a fair-minded reading of the whole passage, as 
cited, together with the foot-note, ought to make it evident 
that Swinton does not say that the Church taught, as one of 
its doctrines, that "the purchaser of indulgence was deliv- 
ered from all his sins." His language bears the fair interpre- 
tation that he charged this teaching, not upon the Church, 
but upon some of its over-zealous members. When all that 
he says about the Catholic Church is taken into consideration, 
and the liberality with which he speaks of it everywhere 
else, this interpretation is the only one which can be justly 
given to his words. With this interpretation, which ought 
to be accepted, when there is no good reason for any other, 
the charge against Swinton falls to the ground. A willing- 
ness to deal liberally and honorably with a writer, as to the 
meaning of his words, would remove all objection to the 
teachings of Swinton's book on the part of Catholics.* 

* A very complete answer to Mr. Cooke on this point will be found in 
the editorials of the Boston Post (page 118), the Boston Beacon (page 126), 



(56 



IV. 

Swinton's Statement Endorsed. 

Docs Swinton give a true interpretation of the teaching and 
the practice of the Catholic Church in the matter of indul- 
gences? In answer to this question I propose to cite several 
good authorities. The following expressions of opinion 
were called forth by the controversy over the book in Bos- 
ton during last summer and autumn, subsequent to the dis- 
placement of the book by the Boston School Board in June. 

Mr. Edwin D. Mead, a very competent authority, said of the 
book, in a public address, which was published under the title 
of "The Roman Catholic Church and the School Question" : 

* f I maintain that this note states the substantial truth of 
history. But it is not true that the note affirms, as the 
Committee says it does, that indulgences have been repre- 
sented as ' permissions to commit sin.'" * 

The same opinion was expressed by Dr. A. A. Miner, f 
who said, in speaking of Swinton's book : 

and the Congregationalist (page 119), and in the letter written by Hon. H. 
Winn to the Boston Herald (page 12G), as well as in two notable editorials 
in the Christian Union of Jan. 10 and 24, 1889, quoted on pages 128 and 
129, and in an editorial in the Boston Advertiser of June 20, 1888, quoted 
on page 121. Prof. Charles Kendall Adams, Mr. Cooke's favorite histo- 
rian, also declares that Swinton's account of the Reformation preaches 
" the Protestant doctrine " and "omits to preach the Catholic doctrine.'' 
(See page 125, and his article in full on page 212.) — R. J. J. 

* See foot-note on page 55, and foot-note on page 45. — R. J. J. 

f In the Christian Mirror (March 23, 1889), Rev. C. C. Starbuck, a 
clergyman of the most pronounced Protestant type, writes as follows of 
Dr. Miner's treatment of the question: " But 1 should like to ask, are 
there in Boston no copies of the Acts of Trent, and no authorized cate- 
chisms? Surely a gentleman who has embarked so zealously and repre- 
sentatively in a controversy whose very pivot is Rome's doctrine of the 
foi-giveness of sins, ought to show a reasonable intelligence as to this 
doctrine. But I must be permitted to say that he shows an unreasonable 
unintelligencc, striking blindly about, merely because he has not thought 
it worth while to ascertain Roman doctrine from authentic sources. . . . 
Dr. Miner thus resembles a man who imagines he sees a ditch before him, 



67 

"Its definition of indulgence is undeniably correct. Its 
statement of the corruptions that grew up in connection 
therewith suggests nothing that is not strictly true, on the 
whole, but is a feeble statement of the truth." 

The same position was maintained by several of the lead- 
ing clergymen of Boston, in a petition which they signed : 

" The paragraph which led to the book's objection con- 
tained a true statement of history, on the assertion of stand- 
ard authorities of all schools. 

"(Signed) Keys. Philip S. Moxom. 

David Gregg. 

A. J. Gordon. 

John F. Clymer. 

James M. Gray. 

James E. Dunn. 

Nelson B. Jones, Jr. 

Ezra Farnsworth." 

An old and leading religious journal, the Evangelist, 

June 28, 1888, made this comment on the foot-note in Swin- 

ton's History : 

" That seems to us a very fair statement of the facts of the 
pardoner's trade as it existed at the time, and the Protestant 
members of the Committee must have had other reasons than 
its incorrectness for displacing the book." 

Another able religious journal, the Congregationalist and 
Boston Recorder, in its issue of Nov. 29, said : 

"The general estimate of the Inquisition which it presents, 
and most of its special declarations, are historically correct, 
and ought to be taught." 

The Transcript, one of the most scholarly and able of the 
Boston daily newspapers, has repeatedly expressed itself as 

and, receding, plunges into a ditch behind him. And all because he did 
not care to look up one or two easily obtainable books. Now general 
Protestantism suffers when we fall into these slips, as we all do, more or 
less, and we ought to take one another up sharply over them, so as to com- 
pel each other into a greater accuracy as to Roman Catholic affairs than 
we are accustomed to think it worth while to cultivate." — R. J. J. 



68 

approving the teachings of Swinton. In its issue of Oct. 1, 
it said : 

"But judging from Mr. Travis's experience, the instructor, 
while allowed to teach that there was a Reformation, must 
not tell his class why Luther protested against Tetzel's sale 
of indulgences. Not only must he not do that, but he must 
teach that an indulgence was what we know and what Martin 
Luther knew it was not." 

The Boston Record of June 20 expressed its understand- 
ing of the subject in these words : 

" The recent suppression of a history for stating a fact per- 
fectly well known and fully proved was a partisan and unwise 
concession to a spirit which will work mischief if indulged." 

The Boston Herald, which has been quoied as strongly 
disapproving of Swinton's History, in its issue of July 14, 
after a careful review of the whole subject, said : 

" The statement made by Prof. Swinton in his school his- 
tory is fully sustained by all acknowledged authorities, 
whether secular or religious, though the Roman Catholic 
authorities generally accessible in English are rather shy of 
giving all the facts of the case, while the Protestant writers are 
often so sure of them that they present a very distorted record." 

To these Protestant opinions may be added that of a very 
high Catholic authority. In the Boston Globe of Oct. 6, 
1888, was printed an interview with Vicar-General Byrne, a 
leading Catholic official, who declared that Swinton does not 
misrepresent the Catholic Church in what he says about in- 
dulgences.* When asked if the doctrine that indulgences 
permitted the committing of sin was not taught in Swinton's 
book, the Vicar-General answered: 

" Not that I can see ; though I have heard it so stated by 
men who ought to know. I have seen the celebrated foot- 
note only in quotation, and, judging from that, I would have 
to absolve Swinton from this charge. It would appear that 
it is not in Swinton's History except in so far as the imagina- 

* See Vicar-General Byrne's letter on page 123. — R. J. J. 



69 

tion and preconceived notions of Mr. Travis, the High School 
teacher, injected into it. This is another illustration of how 
people find in books and dogmas what is not there at all, not 
even in germ. I defy any honest and unprejudiced mind to 
infer this shameful doctrine from Swinton's foot-note." 

Further on in the interview, the Vicar-General made use 
of this emphatic declaration : 

"One thing is certain. Swinton never charged Tetzel with 
ffivinff this false definition of an indulgence." 

The quotations just given show a remarkable unanimity 
in declaring that Swinton is not in error in what he says 
about indulgences and the early history of Protestantism. 
Several of them also indicate the fact that Swinton does not 
charge the Catholic Church with teaching that an indulgence 
was a permission to sin. 

In two or three succeeding issues of the Standard, I shall 
discuss other phases of this important subject.* 

George W. Cooke. 



THE DEFENCE CONTINUED. 

SECOND LETTER OF GEORGE W. COOKE. 

[From the Dedham Standard, Jan. 26, 1889.] 

V. 

"What is an Indulgence? 

In order to understand whether Swinton has misrepre- 
sented history or not, it is desirable that we should know 

* It was in consequence of this announcement by Mr. Cooke of his in- 
tention to continue his letters through two or three succeeding issues of 
the Standard that I did not reply to this letter in the next number of that 
paper, which otherwise I should have done. In view of his announcement, 
I stood aside, and would have held my peace until he had concluded all 
that he desired to say, if I had not felt it my duty to interrupt him for the 
purpose of calling attention to the fact that his alleged quotations from 
Catholic authorities were distortions and mutilations of the writers whom 
he appeared to quote. This also accounts for the irregular order in which 
my replies to Mr. Cooke's arguments were made. — R. J. J. 



70 

what is an indulgence. As the standard histories are not 
generally accessible, and as many persons are too busy to 
consult them, I propose to quote from two or three of them 
at some length. I do so in order that I may give a defini- 
tion which will stand the test of ri»id historic investigation. 
All the definitions which I now quote are from historians 
whose works are accepted by Catholics as being fair and 
accurate.* 

I will begin with the definition given by that generally 
approved authority, the "Encyclopedia Britanuica " : 

"Indulgence, in Roman Catholic theology, is defined as 
the remission, in whole or in part, by ecclesiastical authority, 
to the penitent sinners, of the temporal punishment due for 
sin. . . . That theory may be said to resolve itself into two 
positions: (1) that, after the remission of the eternal pun- 
ishment due for sin, there remains due to the justice of God 
a certain amount of temporal pain to be undergone, either 
before death in this world, or after death in purgatory; (2) 
that this pain may be remitted by the application of the 
superabundant merits of Christ and the saints, out of the 
treasury of the Church, the administration of which treasury 
is the prerogative of the hierarchy. . . . Indulgences arc 
either general or particular, i. e., either open to the whole 
Church or confined to particular localities. The most general 
of all is that which is proclaimed in the year of jubilee. 
Indulgences again are either plenary or non-plenary, the 
former being a total remission of all the temporal punish- 
ment which may have been incurred by the recipient. It 
must carefully be borne in mind that, in Roman Catholic 
orthodoxy, indulgence is never absolutely gratuitous, and 
that those only can in any circumstances validly receive it 
who are in full communion with the Church, and have 
resorted to the sacrament of penance, in which alone, after 
due contrition and confession, provision is made for the 
remission of the graver penalty of sin." 

* Mx\ Cooke has no right to speak for Catholics in this matter. Catho- 
lics do not, and, of course, cannot, accept definitions of the doctrines and 
teachings of their Church by Protestant authorities, for however fair the 
spirit of these Avriters may be, they write entirely from the Protestant 
stand-point. 



71 

Prof. George P. Fisher, of Yale College, in his work on 

"The Reformation," a book highly approved by students for 

its accuracy and fairness, touches upon the origin and history 

of the doctrine of indulgences : — 

"Indulgences, in the earlier ages of the Church, had been 
a relaxation of penance, or of the discipline imposed by the 
Church on penitents who had been guilty of mortal sin. 
The doctrine of penance required that for each sin satisfac- 
tion should be superadded to contrition and confession. 
Then came the custom of commuting these appointed tem- 
poral penalties. . . . The practice of accepting offerings of 
money in the room of the ordinary forms of penance harmo- 
nized with the penal codes in vogue among the barbarian 
peoples. . . . By Aquinas, the priest is made the instrument 
of conveying the divine pardon, the vehicle through which 
the grace of God passes to the penitent. With the jubilees, 
or pilgrimages to Rome, ordained by the Popes, came the 
plenaiy indulgences, as the complete remission of all tem- 
poral penalties — that is, the penalties still obligatory on the 
penitent — on the fulfilment of prescribed conditions. These 
penalties might extend into purgatory, but the indulgence 
obliterated them all." 

During last year was published the seventh volume of an 
extensive " History of the Christian Church," by Dr. Philip 
Schaff, which has already become a standard authority, be- 
cause of its learning, its judicious tone, and its marked liter- 
ary ability. This volume treats of the Reformation, and its 
definition of indulgences has been accepted by Catholics as a 
correct one.* Dr. Schaff also treats the subject somewhat 
historically : 

" The difficult and complicated doctrine of indulgences is 
peculiar to the Roman Church. It was developed by the 
mediaeval schoolmen, and sanctioned by the Council of Trent 

* This definition of indulgences has not been accepted by Catholics as 
a correct one. See definition in the Catechism of the Council of Balti- 
more, page 24; also that given by Maurel, page 73; as well as that of Dens, 
page 88. The reader will notice that no mention is made in any of these 
approved definitions of the ' ' payment of money to the church or some 
charitable object" as a requisite for obtaining an indulgence. 



72 

(Dec. 4, 1563), yet without a definition and with an express 
warning against abuses and evil gains. 

"In ecclesiastical Latin, an indulgence means the remission 
of the temporal (not the eternal) punishment of sin (not of sin 
itself), on condition of penance and the payment of money 
to the Church or to some charitable object. It may be granted 
by a bishop or archbishop within his diocese, while the Pope 
has the power to grant it to all Catholics. The practice of 
indulgences grew out of a custom of the northern and western 
barbarians to substitute pecuniary compensation for punish- 
ment of an offence. The Church favored this custom in order 
to avoid bloodshed, but did wrong in applying it to religious 
offences. . . . The practice rapidly spread on the Continent, 
and was used by the Popes during and after the crusades, as a 
means of increasing their power. It was justified and re- 
duced to a theory by the schoolmen, especially by Thomas 
Aquinas, in close connection with the doctrine of the sacra- 
ment of penance and priestly absolution. 

" The sacrament of penance includes three elements, — con- 
trition of the heart, confession of the mouth (to the priest) , and 
satisfaction by good works, such as prayer, fasting, alms- 
giving, pilgrimages, all of which arc supposed to have an 
atoning efficacy. God forgives only the eternal punishment 
of sin, and he alone can do that; but the sinner has to bear 
the temporal punishments, either in this life or in purgatory; 
and these punishments are under the control of the Church 
or the priesthood, especially the Pope as its legitimate head. 
There are also works of supererogation, performed by Christ 
and the saints, with corresponding extra merits and extra 
rewards, and these constitute a rich treasury from which the 
Pope, as the treasurer, can dispense indulgences for money. 
This papal power of dispensation extends even to the departed 
souls in purgatory, whose sufferings thereby may be abridged. 
This is the scholastic doctrine." 

These Protestant definitions may be supplemented or cor- 
rected by one from a Catholic source. The standard Catho- 
lic authority on indulgences, at least in English, seems to be 
a work entitled "The Christian Instructed in the Nature and 
Use of Indulgences," by the Rev. A. Maurel. I will quote at 
some length from the chapter of this work devoted to the 
definition of an indulgence: 



73 

" Suppose the case of one who has had the misfortune of 
offending God. If the sin be mortal, the injury done to the 
Divine Majesty is grievous ; consequently, this person has 
both lost sanctifying grace, and merited eternal chastisements. 
But should it be merely venial, the friendship of God is not 
lost, so that in this case he incurs only a temporal penalty. 
In the former supposition, the sacrament of penance, or an 
act of perfect contrition reconciles the sinner with his Crea- 
tor, and obtains for him pardon as to the eternal punishment. 
But since a temporal penalty is ordinarily substituted for this 
eternal chastisement, the offender, though reconciled with 
God, must pay that fine either in this life by means of works 
of penance, or hereafter by the pains of purgatory. 

" Blessed be God ! by an inestimable benefit, whose worth 
and greatness are beyond expression, or as Bourdaloue 
says, by a favor calculated to call forth all the envy of 
demons against man, the Almighty graciously remits that 
debt by means of indulgences. In fact, indulgences are 
nothing else than this remission. At the very moment the 
sinner separates himself from God by sin, God may abandon 
and deliver him up to the rigor of his inexorable justice. 
But far from doing this, he says to him : 'Do penance, and 
you will thereby avert the arrows of my vengeance.' Not 
only that, but since the reconciliation of the soul to God by 
penance entails a length of painful sufferings which the trans- 
gressor must undergo in order to make satisfaction, our 
Divine Lord on that account vouchsafes to give up the strict 
right he has to exact such a penalty. Accordingly, to sup- 
ply the insufficiency of the sinner's satisfaction, to facilitate 
the total expiation of his sins, and thus to complete his jus- 
tification so to speak, through the hands of his church, he 
holds out to him a treasure of indulgences. 

"An indulgence, then, is 'a remission of the temporal 
punishment for which the sinner remains indebted to the 
Divine Justice on account of sins already pardoned as to their 
guilt and eternal chastisement.' This remission is effected 
by means of the application of the satisfactions contained in 
the Spiritual Treasure of the Church ; it takes place outside 
the sacrament of penance, but always in virtue of the power 
of the keys, that is, through the medium of those empow- 
ered to unlock and dispense this grand treasure. Hence an 
indulgence remits neither mortal sin, nor venial sin, nor the 
eternal chastisement; neither does it bring about or effect 
justification ; on the contrary, it presupposes and follows it." 



VI. 
The Abuse of Indulgences.* 

As an indulgence is thus defined, it would appear that 
Swinton misconceived its nature, if his statement thai it was 
"represented as an actual pardon of guilt," applied to the 
direct teaching of the Church, As we have already seen, 
the Church never formulated its practice in regard to indul- 
gences into a positive doctrine; and while Swinton states 
what the Church aotually did, his assertion is not in harmony 
with its teaohingS.f Bui as Swinton undertakes in his foot- 
note to desoribe only what was performed by many Catho- 
lics, it is necessary to inquire into what was the Catholic 
practioe at the period when Luther posted his ninety-five 
theses. 

'The writers already quoted recognize the abuses to which 
Swinton refers in his note, ami whieh he aeeurately describes 
in saying- that " indulgences were represented as aotual par- 
dons of guilt, and the purchaser ol' indulgence was said to 
be delivered from all his sins.'* These abuses are thus re- 
ferred to by the "Encyclopedia Britannica," in the artiole 
already quoted : — 

"The dootrine of indulgences is singularly open to misun- 
derstanding; and in its practical applications it has too often 
been used to sanction the most Qagranl immorality. The 
scandalous abuses connected with the 'pardoners' trade, 
and in particular the reckless conduct oi' the hawkers of 



v N>> one denies that bad men have at times' abused Indulgences. The 
Catholic Church acknowledges and deplores that fact; and. as soon as 
such abuses have come to her knowledge, she has used every means to 
reform and remedy the evil. Hoes Mr. Cooke mean to argue that because 
Indulgences have been at times abused, therefore they OUghl to be abolished 
altogether as in themselves bad: By the same line of reasoning, every 
good thine would have to be abolished : for there is nothing good which 
cannol be, and at times has not been, abused. — K. ,1. ,1. 

+ Why, then, on page 86, does Mr. Cooke positively assure us that " the 
foot-note in Swinton is perfectly true in every particular"? — Li. J. J. 



75 

papal indulgence granted l>y those who should contribute to 
the funds for the completion of St. Peter's, Home, were, ;«h 
is well known, very prominent among the proximate cause! 
of the Protestant Reformation." 

In speaking of the sale of indulgences at the time of 
Luther, Prof. Fisher -ays \ 

"The business of selling indulgences bad grown by the 
profitableness of it. . . . As managed by Tetzel and the 
other emissaries sen! out to collect, mono}- for the building 
of St. Peter's Church, the indulgence was a simple bargain, 
according to which, on the payment of* a stipulated hum, the 
individual received a full discharge from the penalties of sin, 
or procured the release of a soul from the flame- of purga- 
tory. The forgiveness of sins was offered in the market for 

money. 

"The granting of indulgences degenerated, after the time 
of the crusades, into a regular traffic, and became a source of 
ecclesiastical and monastic wealth. . . . The rebuilding of 
St. Peter's Church in Rome furnished an occasion for the 
periodical exercise of the papal power of granting indul- 
gences. Julius II. and Leo X., two of* the most worldly, 
avaricious, and extravagant popes, had no scruple to raise 
funds for that object, and incidentally for their own aggran- 
dizement, from the traffic in indulgences. Both issued sev- 
eral hulls to that effect." 

Dr. Schaff thus describes the methods pursued by Tetzel 
in the sale of indulgences in Saxony : 

"Tetzel t ravelled with great pomp and circumstance through 
Germany, and recommended with unscrupulous effrontery 
and declamatory eloquence the indulgences of the pope to 
the large crowds who gathered from every quarter around 
him. He was received like a messenger from heaven. 
Priests, monks, and magistrates, men and women, old and 
young, marched in solemn procession with Songs, flags, and 

candles, tinder the ringing of bells, to meet him and his 

fellow monks, and follow them to the church. The papal hull 
on a velvet cushion was placed on the high altar, a red cr< 
with silken banner bearing the papal arms, was erected he- 
fore it, and a larger iron chest was put beneath the cross for 
the indulgence money. The preachers, \>y daily sermons, 



76 

hymns, and processions, urged the people, with extravagant 
laudations of the Pope's bull, to purchase letters of indul- 
gence for their own benefit, and at the same time played 
upon their sympathies for departed relatives and friends 
whom they might release from their sufferings in purgatory 
' as soon us the penny tinkles in the box !' " 

Leopold von Ranke is usually accepted as the greatest of 
church historians. He is never sectarian, but he is always 
moderate and perfectly fair.* In his " History of the 
Papacy" he refers to the vast evil which was created by the 
sale of indulgences, and to the worldly tendency it every- 
where produced in the Church. This is his statement, 
which does not exaggerate, but plainly shows how great the 
corruption : 

"The fact that the German assault on the Roman Church 
was first directed against the abuses arising from the sale 
of indulgences, has sometimes been regarded as mere matter 
of accident ; but as the alienation of' that which is most essen- 
tially spiritual, involved in the doctrine of indulgences, laid 
open and gave to view the weakest point in the whole sys- 
tem — that worldliness of spirit now prevalent in the Church 
— so was it, of all things, best calculated to shock and 
offend the convictions of those earnest and profound thinkers, 
the German theologians. A man like Luther, whose reli- 
gion was sincere and deeply felt, whose opinions of sin and 
justification were those propounded by the early German 
theologians, and confirmed in his mind by the study of Scrip- 
ture, which he had drunk with a thirsting heart, could not 

* A distinction is here necessary to be made. Milman, Von Ranke, 
Fisher, and SchafT are all historians who view history through the lens of 
Protestantism. They are avowed Protestant writers, who do not believe 
in Catholic doctrines and have no sympathy with the Catholic Church, its 
teachings, or its practices. They cannot, therefore, be quoted as Mr. 
Cooke attempts to quotes them, as if their dicta on historical questions 
touching the Catholic Church had that quality of judicial impartiality 
which commends them to universal acceptance. Such is not the case. 
Admitting their Protestant bias, they may be properly ranked by Protes- 
tants as high-toned and fair writers, but by Catholics they certainly will 
not be accepted as authorities on matters concerning Catholic history aud 
doctrine. — It. J. J. 



77 

fail to be revolted and shocked by the sale of indulgences. 
Forgiveness of sins to be purchased for money ! This must, 
of necessity, be deeply offensive to him, whose conclusions 
were drawn from profound contemplation of the eternal rela- 
tion subsisting between God and man, and who had learned 
to interpret Scripture for himself." 

Whatever the formulated teaching of the Church, the 
people believed in indulgences as direct pardons of sin.* 
This is very clearly pointed out by Dean Milman, another 
able church historian, who says : 

"Long before Luther this abuse had rankled in the heart 
of Christendom. It was in vain for the Church to assert 
that, rightly understood, indulgences only released from 
temporary penances; that they were a commutation, a mer- 
ciful, lawful commutation for such penances. The language 
of the promulgators and vendors of the indulgences, even of 
the indulgences themselves, was, to the vulgar ear, the 
broad, plain, direct guarantee from the pains of purgatory, 
from hell itself, for tens, hundreds, thousands of years ; a 
sweeping pardon for all sins committed, a sweeping license 
for sins to be committed; and if this talse construction, it 
might be, was perilous to the irreligious, this even seeming 
flagrant dissociation of morality from religion was no less 
revolting to the religious." 

As Dean Milman says, the very wording of the absolu- 
tion given the purchaser of indulgence led the people to 
believe that they were buying a full pardon for sin. This 
may be seen in the absolution used by Tetzel, and which 
appears in translation in Robertson's " History of the Reign 
of the Emperor Charles V." : 

"May our Lord Jesus Christ have mercy upon thee and 
absolve thee by the merits of His most holy passion. And I, 
by His authority, that of His apostles Peter and Paul, and of 
most holy Pope, granted and committed to me in these parts, 
do absolve thee, first, from all ecclesiastical censures, in what- 

* If the term "the people*' is meant to include Catholics, this state- 
ment is not true. Catholic people never believed indulgences were 
pardons for sin. 



78 

ever manner they have been incurred, and then from all thy 
sins, transgressions, and excesses, how onerous soever they 
may be, even from such as are reserved for the cognizance 
of the Holy See ; and as far as the keys of the Holy Church 
extend, I remit to you all punishment which you deserve in 
purgatory on their account ; and I restore you to the holy 
sacraments of the Church, to the unity of the faithful, and to 
that innocence and purity which you possessed at baptism ; 
to that when you die the gates of punishment shall be shut, 
and the gates of paradise and delight shall be opened ; and 
if you shall not die at present this grace shall remain in full 
force when you are at the point of death. In the name of 
the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." * 

In the first volume of his book on " The Rise of the Dutch 
Republic," Motley has described the practical effects of the 
sale of indulgences : f 

" The sale of absolutions was the source of large fortunes 
to the priests. The enormous impudence of this traffic 
almost exceeds belief. Throughout the Netherlands the 
price current of the wares thus offered for sale was pub- 
lished in every town and village. God's pardon for crimes 
already committed, or about to be committed, was advertised 
according to a graduated tariff. Thus, poisoning, for exam- 
ple, was absolute for eleven ducats, six livres tournois. 
Absolution for incest was afforded at thirty-six livres, three 
ducats. Perjury came to seven livres and three carlines. 
Pardon for murder, if not by poison, was cheaper. Even a 
parricide could buy forgiveness at God's tribunal at one 

* There is no evidence that any document, in the form here quoted, was 
ever issued by Tetzel. The Protestant historian, Sir Francis Palgrave, 
classifies Robertson in the list of dishonest and unfair writers. He says : 
" Never do these writers, or their school, whether in France or Great Brit- 
ain, Voltaire or Mably, Hume, Robertson, or Henry, treat the clergy or the 
church with fairness ; not even common honesty. If historical notoriety 
enforces the allowance of any merit to a priest, the effect of this ex- 
torted acknowledgment is destroyed by a clever insinuation or a coarse 
innuendo." — Preface to History of Normandy and England. Seepage 
U5. — R. J. J. 

f It is sufficient to put over against Motley the declaration of Prof. 
Fisher, of Yale College: "To say that the Roman Catholic Church has 
ever taught that the forgiveness of sins can be bought with money, is an 
atrocious slander." (See page 147.) — R. J. J. 



79 

ducat, four livres, eight carlines. Henry de Montfort, in ther 
year 1448, purchased absolution for that crime at that price. 
Was it strange that a century or so of this kind of work 
should produce a Luther? Was it unnatural that plain 
people, who loved the ancient church, should rather desire 
to see her purged of such blasphemous abuses than to hear 
of St. Peter's dome rising a little nearer to the clouds on 
these proceeds of commuted crime?" 

That the Church itself approved of what is here described, 
I do not wish to assert ; but undeniably these things were 
done in the name of the Church. The people believed in 
indulgences as actual pardons of sin, and they were sold to 
them with the assurance that they were such. 

Whatever the theory of the Church, indulgences were 
accepted as permissions to sin, and everything connected 
with their sale confirmed this belief on the part of the great 
mass of the people. That careful and very tolerant writer, 
the Rev. Dr. Hedge, has put into a few words what I believe 
is the exact truth in the matter : 

" Penitence was nominally required of the sinner, but 
proofs of penance were not exacted. Practically , the indul- 
gence meant impunity for sin. A more complete travesty of 
the gospel — laughable if not so impious — could hardly be 
conceived. The faithful themselves weie shocked by the 
shameless realism which characterized the proclamations of 
the German commissioner, Tetzel." * 

What Luther did and said can have no meaning whatever, 
if indulgences were not generally sold " as actual pardons of 

* Rev. C. C. Starbuck, a Protestant authority already quoted, in his let- 
ter to the Christian Mirror (April 20, 1889), on this question, says: "Dr. 
Hedge's presentation is just as nearly wrong end foremost as it could 
easily be. It seems to have been derived from the depths of the literary 
consciousness, and that is a very insecure dependence for accuracy in 
presentations of Roman Catholic doctrine." Mr. Starbuck adds, that Dr. 
Hedge's statement concerning the doctrine of indulgences " would fur- 
nish much matter of amusement to any intelligent boy or girl who had 
gone through DeDharbe's Catechism, or any equivalent one, under a com- 
petent instructor." — R. J. J. 



80 

guilt." The Reformation is without an explanation, if "the 
purchaser of indulgence was not said to be delivered from all 
sins." It was the universal traffic in indulgences, the open 
and shameless sale of them as covering crime, which aroused 
the reformers everywhere and caused the division of the 
Church.* History cannot be gainsaid. The facts are too 
patent to all intelligent readers. Geqrge w< Cqqk ^ 



THE DEFENCE CONTINUED. 

THIRD LETTER OF THE REV. GEORGE W. COOKE. 

[From the Declham Standard, Feb. 2, 1889.] 

VII. 

Catholic Testimony to the Abuse df Indulgences. 

It is not necessary to rely on Protestant authors only, in 
order to prove that indulgences were sold as pardons of guilt. 
The Catholic writers of the Reformation era, and since, have 
given the same testimony as their Protestant neighbors. 

The greatest scholar of that period, Erasmus, who re- 
mained a Catholic at heart, though sometimes in sympathy 
with the reformers, spoke of indulgences, in his "Praise of 
Folly," as " the crime of false pardons." In writing to Colet, 
the English scholar, he said : 

" The Court of Rome clearly has lost all sense of shame ; 
for what could be more shameless than these continued indul- 
gences ? " 

At another time he wrote : 

" Everywhere the remission of purgatorial torment is sold ; 
nor is it sold only, but forced upon those who refuse it." 

* Dr. Sclian", whom Mr. Cooke considers very high authority, says, 
on the contrary, that the Reformation would have come to pass if Tetzel 
had never lived, and that it had no connection with indulgences. (See 
page 151.) — R. J. J. 



81 

A Catholic historian, Mairnbourg, thus asserts the fact of 
indulgences being sold as pardons of guilt : 

"Some of these preachers did not fail, as usual, to distort 
their subject, and so to exaggerate the value of the indul- 
gences as to lead the people to believe that as soon as they 
gave their money they were certain of salvation, and of the 
deliverance of souls from purgatory." 

Maurel, in his book on indulgences, attempts to defend the 
methods adopted by Leo X., which he claims were quite in- 
nocent and honorable ; but he is obliged to end his statement 
by saying : 

" No doubt some shocking abuses unfortunately crept into 
the mode of collecting or receiving these alms." 

Adrian VI., the successor in the papal chair to Leo X., 
was an honest, noble man, and did all he could to promote 
reform in the Church. This was his testimony in regard to 
the evils of the time, as he is quoted by Ranke and other 
historians : 

"These disorders sprang from the sins of men, more espe- 
cially from the sins of priests and prelates. Even in the 
holy chair many horrible crimes have been committed. The 
contagious disease, spreading from the head to the members, 
from the Pope to lesser prelates, has spread far and wide, so 
that scarcely any one is to be found who does right and who 
is free from infection." 

In the Prologue to his " Canterbury Tales," Chaucer de- 
scribes the pardoner : 

" His wallet lay before him in his lap 
Brim-full of pardons come from Rome all hot; 
And thus with fained Mattering and japes, 
He made the parsons and the people his apes." 

The testimony of Luther, who was still decidedly a Cath- 
olic when he nailed the theses to the church door, may not be 
out of place here as to the way in which indulgences were 
sold. He wrote to the archbishop to complain of Tetzel and 
his co-workers, in these most suggestive words : 



82 

w I complain bitterly of the fatal errors in which these men 
are involving the common people, men of weak understand- 
ing, whom, foolish as they are, these men persuade that they 
Avill be sure of salvation if they only buy their letters of 
plenary indulgence. They believe that souls will fly out of 
purgatory the moment that the money paid for their redemp- 
tion is thrown into the preacher's bag, and that such virtue 
belongs to these indulgences that there is no sin which the 
indulgences will not absolutely and at once efface." 

This explicit statement of Luther's is very interesting, for 
it tells us distinctly what at first was the ground of his com- 
plaint, and why he attacked the sellers of indulgence. It 
was because they were deceiving the uneducated people, and 
making of religion a mere traffic. 

VIII. 
The Sale of Indulgences still Continued. 

The Church has not changed its doctrine of indulgence 
since the Reformation. What it taught then, it teaches now ; 
and indulgences are still sold.* That the sale of indulgences 
is abused now as in the time of Luther, and centuries before, 
no one will maintain. 

In Chicago, not long since, there appeared in a Catholic 
paper, the following advertisement : — 

"PLENARY INDULGENCES 

" THAT MAY BE GAINED IN THE HOEY FAMILY CHURCH. 

"For sodality members, on the days of meeting, on Com- 
munion Sundays, on the feast of the assumption." 

In the Boston Globe, last autumn, appeared the following 

item of news : 

" In all the Catholic churches throughout the world a special 
mass and office was celebrated yesterday, by order of Leo 
XIII., in order to further the devotion of the holy rosary. 

* Yet on page 45, Mr. Cooke clearly appears to hold a contrary opinion, 
for lie there says: "What the Catholic Church teaches now is not the 
question in controversy, but what it taught at the time of Luther." — R. J. J. 



83 

The month of October is especially devoted to Our Lady of 
the Rosary, and the rosary is publicly recited every evening 
in all Catholic churches. A plenary indulgence is granted 
to all those who attend the devotions and comply with the 
necessary conditions." 

If a correspondent of the Christian Register can be trusted, 
the sale of indulgences in Italy, even to-day, stands in need 
of reformation. Augusta Larned, in the issue of that paper 
for Aug. 16, 1888, in an article entitled "At Bologna, 
Milan, and Como," describes a visit to the Church of San 
Petronio at Bologna, and concludes by saying : 

" By the declining light of day, I saw on the front of the 
old church something that proved an eyesore and an offence 
to my Protestant soul. There, boldly placarded for all men 
to read, was the announcement that plenary indulgences 
were sold within. I found, on inquiry, that Bologna is quite 
the centre of this old abomination. In the little villages 
round about a priest appears on stated occasions, rings a 
bell, and announces to the people that full and free pardon 
for major sins is granted for half a crown, and venial offences 
are condoned for eighteen pence English. At least, this was 
what I was told ; and I have little reason to doubt it. Surely, 
Tetzel still lives, and another Luther is in great and imme- 
diate demand." 

I give the above quotation for what it is worth. If the 
accounts which come to us from Italy, of the abject condi- 
tion in which the common people are held in that country by 
the priests, have any truth in them, we may well believe that 
the old misrepresentation of indulgences still lingers.* 

♦Where does Mr. Cooke get his accounts of the " abject condition" in 
which the common people of Italy are held by the priests ? This is un- 
doubtedly another example of his eager credulity that forms a staple fea- 
ture of the no-Popery leaflets. Gorres, a German scholar of high repute, 
speaking of the influence of their religion on the Italian peasantry, says : 
" This feeling of propriety, which restrains their natural vivacity within the 
bounds of decorum, renders intercourse with the most uncultivated classes 
agreeable. The ingenuous and open character of the peasantry has a most 
becoming exterior, and elevates them far above the rustic manners and 



84: 

The other quotations are entirely in harmony with the 
teachings of the Church. Maurel's book on indulgences de- 
votes two hundred pages to the various methods by which 
they may be obtained. "Whatever the method of obtaining 
them, the Catholic regards indulgences as perfectly trust- 
worthy in their nature. "It is infallibly certain," says 
Maurel, "that the faithful on earth obtain the fruit of an 
indulgence which the Church makes applicable to the living." 

Not only does the Church ensure the certainty of an indul- 
gence, but it insists that it must be paid for by the faithful. 
"The prelates of the Church," says Maurel, "even the popes 
themselves, are not such absolute' masters as to be able, at 
pleasure, and without any compensation, to remit or cover 
the transgressions and penalties for which sinners are answer- 
able before the Sovereign Judge." Again, we learn that, 
" when a priest, in the tribunal of penance, absolves a peni- 
tent from his faults and a part of the temporal penalty, he 
does not do so without any compensation." The money thus 
obtained is devoted to church purposes, for we are told that 
when "the vicars of Christ" sell indulgences, " they invite us 
to contribute towards the propagation of the faith in distant 
pagan countries ; to take part in so charitable and holy a work 
as the baptism of children belonging to the Chinese or In- 
dians ; to procure the conversion of sinners through the inter- 
cession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary ; to induce the 
people to enroll themselves in the Associations of the Blessed 
Sacrament ; or in the confraternities of Holy Mary ; to en- 

imcouthness of the corresponding class in other ^countries. Their strong 
natural sense renders them so accurate in their judgment and so just in 
their principles that it* we abstract positive scientitic knowledge, which 
they cannot be supposed to possess, and look only to the relations of 
society, little more would be necessary to transform them into noblemen 
than to change their outward garb." This is the testimony of a scholar, 
based on his own personal observations among the Italian people, and it 
may with confidence be set against the trivial tattle which Mr. Cooke gives 
us on hearsay. — R. J. J. 



85 

courage devout pilgrimages ; to frequent the sacraments ; to 
assist the poor souls in purgatory," etc., etc. 

The Church makes it very easy to obtain indulgences. 
For instance, every time a person recites, with a contrite 
heart, a prescribed invocation to Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, 
he receives an indulgence for three hundred days. Every 
time a person repeats the pious ejaculation, " My Jesus, 
mercy ! " he obtains an indulgence of one hundred days. 
The recitation of the " Stabat Mater," with devotion, gives 
an indulgence of one hundred days. Whenever a person, 
truly penitent, makes the sign of the cross, saying, "In the 
name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost," 
an indulgence of fifty days is gained. An indulgence of 
four hundred days is given to those who, being contrite in 
heart, after confession, on Corpus Christi day, piously assist 
at mass. A great number of similar indulgences may be 
obtained, under like conditions. Also a large number of 
special indulgences are given to churches, societies, and par- 
ticular objects. One of the societies having special privi- 
leges is the " Confraternity of the Rosary"; and those con- 
nected with it have special indulgences granted them after 
the recitation of prayers on the rosary. "Few confraterni- 
ties in the Church," says Maurel, "are more extensively 
propagated than that of the rosary or more productive of 
salutary results. Furthermore, as the conditions exacted by 
it are so easy to be fulfilled, every Catholic ought to be 
delighted to enlist under its banner. The chief condition for 
each member is to recite the entire rosary at least once a 
week, meditating on the fifteen mysteries, accompanied with 
some appropriate reflections." "To become a member of 
the confraternity," we are also told, " the only formality 
requisite is to have one's name inscribed in the registry 
belonging to the society. A person ought to take care to 
have his rosary or chaplet blessed by a Dominican Father 



86 

or by a priest who may have received the power from the 
Pope directly, or from the Very Rev. Superior-General of 
the order of Friars Preachers. Otherwise the indulgences 
could not be gained." 

This is to he remembered in regard to indulgences, that 
they are wholly under the control of the priesthood.* How- 
ever benevolently used, they are a powerful lever for gain- 
ing money. The layman must accept the priest's terms, and 
the priest is careful to commend the wonderful efficacy of 
the indulgence. However honest the Church may be, the 
association oi' anything so thoroughly believed in as the 
indulgence is by Catholics, with monetary conditions, must 
lie always open to more or less oi' abuse. 

From the facts now presented, it would appear that the 
foot-note in Swinton is perfectly true in every particular.! If 
one historian can confirm the statements of another, then. 
Swintons foot-note is continued by a consensus of all the 
competent historians. Georgia W. Cooke. 



THE REV. R. J. JOHTSTSON REPLIES. 

THE TRTJ ill A.BOUT [NDULGENCES. — THE CATHOLIC CHURCH N EVEB 
TAUGHT THAT TUl'Y WKKK PARDONS OF GUILT 01! A LICENSE 
TO COMMIT SIN. 

[From the Dedham Standard, Feb. •■>. 1889. | 
Your readers have no doubt had as much entertainment as 
myself in reading the recent letters by your correspondent, 
the Rev. George W. Cooke, on "The School Controversy.'* 

♦This is utterly untrue. No priest has the power to grant an indulgence, 
or to make any terms or conditions in relation to it. ^See page 112.) — 
R. .1. .1. 

t Nevertheless, on page 74. Mr Cooke declares with equal lirmuess that 
Sainton's assertion is not in harmony with its (the Church's) teaching. — 
R. J. J. 



87 

It was not my intention to intrude upon his studies in history 
or to offer any remarks upon their results until he had con- 
cluded his course. But I see that he is wandering farther 
and farther away from the point in issue between us, and 
feel, therefore, that unless some limit be set to his cyclic dis- 
quisitions upon unrelated topics, we shall never reach a con- 
clusion. 

Let me recall to his attention and that of the general 
reader exactly what the point at issue is. It is simply 
whether Swinton in his " Outlines " gives a correct definition 
of indulgences ; that is to say, is it true that the Catholic 
Church ever represented an indulgence as a " pardon of 
guilt" or ever authorized or sanctioned the teaching that 
"the purchaser of indulgence" was "delivered from all his 
sins "? 

Up to this time, though he has written several long letters 
about and around it, your correspondent has not yet addressed 
himself to this one vital point. I looked for him to show 
some proof for the statement that indulgences were repre- 
sented by the Catholic Church as "actual pardons of guilt"; 
whether by documents issuing from the Pope, either personally 
or by a council. I wait in vain for him to produce the first 
fragment of evidence of this kind. Surely he must see that 
the accuracy of Swinton's definition of indulgences, which he 
pledged himself to show, cannot be established by anything 
short of quotations from the authoritative utterances of the 
Catholic Church. Again and again in his letters, your corre- 
spondent asserts that Mr. Swinton's statement of the matter is 
correct. Of course it is open to him to repeat this assertion 
as often as he likes ; but it is an empty reiteration, and it 
would not advance his argument. It is proofs and authorities 
that we want, not assertions. 

In attempting to recall your correspondent to the real n/ 

question at issue, let me state once more what an indulgence 



88 

is, as the Catholic Church teaches it. Dens and other theo- 
logians define an indulgence as follows : 

"An indulgence is a remission of the temporal punishment 
due to sins remitted as to their guilt ; granted by the power 
of the keys, externally to the sacrament, by an application of 
the satisfactions which arc contained in the treasury of the 
Church." 

Such is the definition given by an approved theologian, a 
definition which is substantially identical with what the 
Church has held from the days of the early fathers down 
through the days of the schoolmen to our own times. 

To suppose, indeed, that in any state of civilized society 
either " license of sinning," or absolution for having sinned, 
could be publicly recognized as venal, and offered for sale 
by the lawfully constituted authorities, would seem to be 
little short of absurdity ; and few" persons, unless blinded by 
prejudice, could honestly entertain the supposition. Such a 
system, in practical operation, would be subversive of society, 
to say nothing of religion. But your correspondent does 
not seem to have thought it at all necessary to resort to first- 
hand authorities. No wonder then that the discussion has 
been unintelligent. He cannot know what the Catholic 
Church teaches an indulgence to be, except by reference to 
the documents in which her doctrines are declared. These 
documents are in existence, and they were closely scanned 
by the leaders of the Reformation, and none of them has 
made the charge that the doctrine of indulgences was taught 
by the Catholic Church to be " a pardon of guilt/' or that 
" the purchaser of indulgence was said to be delivered from 
all his sins." The severest critics of the Catholic Church 
have not charged her in the worst times with any attempt to 
remove the doctrinal foundations of Christianity. From the 
beginning to the end of the discussion by Luther on indul- 
gences, he nowhere insists, or even intimates, that any 
dreamed-of indulgence is a license to commit sin. 



89 

Prof. Charles Kendall Adams, whom your correspondent 
calls " the highest historical authority we have in this coun- 
try," says on this point : 

"Luther was so far from condemning indulgences that the 
seventy-first of his famous ninety-five theses pronounced a 
curse upon any one who should question their truth or value." 

No reputable historian would make such a serious charge 
against the Catholic Church without citing some support for 
it from the recognized official teaching of the Church itself. 
There is not, in fact, the slightest foundation for such a 
charge, neither in the creeds, the decrees of councils, the 
dogmatic definitions of the Popes, the catechisms, or the 
teachings of theologians. Does any ground for it exist? 
Tetzel's exaggerations on this subject are disputed by no one, 
but it is to be noted that even Tetzel, in his instructions to 
the German priesthood, enjoined on the clergy to impress on 
the people that indulgences would do no good unless after 
repentance and absolution. Not even Tetzel misrepresented 
the doctrine itself; indeed, he took particular pains that the 
doctrine should not be misrepresented. Even Dr. Schaff, 
viewing the subject from a Protestant stand-point (page 152, 
Vol. VI., of his "Church History"), says: 

"We must judge him (Tetzel) from his published sermons 
and his 'Antitheses' against Luther. They teach neither 
more nor less than the usual scholastic doctrine of indulgence, 
based upon an extravagant theory of papal authority. He 
does not ignore, as is often asserted, the necessity of repent- 
ance as a condition of absolution, but he probably did not 
emphasize it in practice, and gave rise, by unguarded expres- 
sions, to damaging stories." 

In a pastoral letter, addressed to the members of his dio- 
cese, and fixed on the door of every church where indulgences 
were granted, Albert, Archbishop of Mayence, formally 
declared that in order to participate in the spiritual graces 
which the Pope offered to all, it was imperative, in the first 



90 

instanoe, to confess their sins, and then to mourn and redeem 
them by voluntary penance. 

Prof. Fisher, writing in the Gongregationalist of July 5, 
INNS, in an able article on indulgences, says, after explaining 
the doctrine at sonic length : 

" The foregoing explanations will show that no teacher in 
the Church of Home, who is intelligent and honest, and no 
good man, would regard with any other feeding than abhor- 
rence the idea of giving a man permission to commit an act 
which was recognized as a sin, or absolve a man beforehand 
from the penances which would follow such an act, if he were 
to do it and then to repent of it." 

Indeed your correspondent himself, by his own quotations 
from standard works, proves that an indulgence was not 
taught by the Church to be "a pardon of guilt." He quotes 
Dr. Seha If to this effect : 

"In ecclesiastical Latin, an indulgence means the remission 
of the temporal (not the eternal) punishment of sin (not of 
sin itself), on condition oi' penance," etc. 

Cardinal Wiseman, writing on indulgences, says: 

" l)o 1 then mean to say, that during the Middle Ages, 
and later, no abuse took place in the practice of indulgences? 
Most certainly not. flagrant and too frequenl abuses, doubt- 
less, occurred through the avarice, rapacity, and impiety of 
men ; especially when indulgence was granted to the con- 
tributors toward charitable or religious foundations, in the 
erection of which private motives too often mingle. But 
the Church ever felt, and ever tried to remedy, the evil. 
These abuses were most strongly condemned by Innocent III., 
in the Council oi' Lateran in 1 139 ; by Innocent IV., in that 
of Lyons in L245 ; and still more pointedly and energetically 
by Clement V., in the Council oi' Vienna in 1311. The 
Council oi' Trent, by an ample decree, completely reformed 
the abuses which had subsequently crept in, and had been 
unfortunately used as a ground for Luther's separation from 
the Church. But even in those ages the real force and the 
requisite conditions of indulgences were well understood." 



01 

I will not dwell any longer upon the historical facts of the 
case. For those who want to know (lie truth they are plain 
enough. For those who merely seek an occasion and a pretext 
to abuse the Catholic Church, nothing that I could say would 
Suffice; they will not accept such authorities, and such 
Protestant authorities as have been already quoted, — Prof. 
Fisher, Dr. Schaff, and the standard encyclopedias. For 
them no historical facts would he of any avail. A corre- 
spondent who does not know the difference Del ween an indul- 
gence and the Inquisition, and who jumbles absolution, 
indulgence, and penance together, will none the less confi- 
dently write long letters on the teaching of the Catholic 
Church in regard to any point of doctrine. A Protestant 
minister, Rev. Dr. K. Court, of Lowell, discussing tint same 
question with another Protestant <livin<', Rev. Mr. Black- 
burn, in the Lowell Times of July 20, \HXH, says that 
"Protestant historians have confounded absolution with in- 
dulgence and indulgence with dispensation, as is well known 
to every student of history who is also well acquainted with 
Roman Catholic theology." There are large numbers of 
people who know nothing about Catholic doctrines, and yet 
who lay down the laws thereon, and expatiate upon truths 
of which they have not a glimmering of understanding. 
Such people say, "J do not believe in this or that, and 
what T do not believe in is false." 

Your correspondent hae had much to say about the sale of 
indulgences. Bishop England, discussing t hi- question, says : 

"As to the sale of indulgences, we allow and admit freely, 
that bad men have committed abuses. But there is what we 
will admit to he a mistake upon the minds of many persons 
as to this practice. A sale means the giving of one com- 
modity for another. .Now, money or other commodities may 
frequently be given with particular dispositions, not to pur- 
chase spiritual effects, which no money could purchase, hut 
to please the Lord, and yet a spiritual advantage will be ob- 



92 

tainod. Thus, when the Scripture informs us that 'alms-deeds 
release from sin,' Ave do not believe the money purchases the 
pardon of the sin in the sense ordinarily attached to sale and 
purchase. Thus, when the prophet Daniel tells the king, 
'Redeem thy sins with alms, and thy iniquities with works 
of mercy to the poor, and perhaps God will forgive thy of- 
fences,' we do not understand a purchase and a sale. Thus, 
when Christian preachers exhort their Hocks to alms-deeds, 
and assure them that ' he who giveth to the poor, lendeth to 
the Lord, and that the Lord will repay him,' we do not accuse 
them of selling pardons. So with indulgences. When the 
Church tells us that by alms-deeds we may obtain the mercy 
of Christ, to remit even the temporal punishment to which 
we remain liable, after we have by repentance and mercy ob- 
tained pardon of our sins, it is not a sale and purchase ; it is 
but the application of the same principle which pervades the 
new law and the old. 

"But as alms-deeds are not the only mode pointed out in 
the Scripture for the obtaining pardon of sins, so they are 
not the only mode pointed out for the obtaining of indul- 
gences. Prayer, visiting the sick, instructing the ignorant, 
receiving the sacraments, and such like practices of piety, are 
equally as nltns-deeds the condition of indulgences. . . . 
We acknowledge that bad men did at different times abuse 
the doctrine of indulgences by endeavoring to impose upon 
the faithful in promising effects from indulgences which the 
Church never promised. We also acknowledge that several 
abuses of the power did frequently take place, but the Church 
uniformly condemned the impostors and labored to suppress 
the abuses. She, then, is not accountable for the misconduct 
of those whom she condemns, more than any State in this 
Union is accountable for the frauds of the villains who may 
be found among its citizens. Nor is she answerable for 
the abuses which she has endeavored to suppress, as the 
State is not answerable for the pettifogging chicanery and 
fraud which is committed under the semblance of law, but 
which is in direct opposition to the spirit of the law, though 
covered by tin 1 letter." 

But Mr. Cooke condemns the Church for what she herself 
condemns, and imputes to her what she herself disclaims. 

Archbishop Spaulding, speaking about selling indulgences, 
says : 



93 

"The granting of the indulgence, even according to the 
avowedly unauthorized practice of Tetzel, did not justify the 
idea of a sale or traffic properly so called. The offering 
made on the occasion was entirely free ; those who were 
unable to contribute anything still obtained the coveted boon ; 
and those who were able contributed according to their abil- 
ity or will, no fixed amount being determined." 

Your correspondent has much to say in his letters about 
the corruptions of the Catholic Church in Luther's day. He 
would almost lead us to believe that all the good people of 
that time left the Catholic Church and became reformers. 
He is constantly telling us of the corrupt state of morals that 
existed in some Catholic countries during the period that pre- 
ceded the revolt of Luther. He appears to be ignorant of 
the fact that the reformers themselves declared that matters 
were not improved, but were made worse, by the spread of 
the reformed doctrines. The limits of my letter will not 
permit any extended quotation ; but among those who testi- 
fied on this point, Luther himself declares : 

" I hold that they who have become Evangelicals have 
become worse than they were before they received the gos- 
pel. Unfortunately, it is our daily experience, that those 
who live under our gospel are more spiteful, more passion- 
ate, more greedy, avaricious, and quarrelsome, than ever 
they were under the Papacy." (Walch's edition of Luther's 
works, Vol. XIII., pages 2193, 2195.) 

I must confess that I am at a loss to understand what the 
motive or purpose of your correspondent can be in doing 
such violence to the plainly expressed meaning of an author 
as he does by omitting a qualifying clause in quoting, in his 
last week's letter, from the Rev. A. Maurel's book on "Indul- 
gences." He first quotes Maurel as saying that " it is infalli- 
bly certain that the faithful on earth obtain the fruit of an 
indulgence which the Church makes applicable to the living." 
Now, mark the unfairness of the quotation. A complete 



94 

sentenoe on page 32 of Mam-el's book is broken in upon at 
a comma point, and the omitted clause that precedes the 
quoted portion completely changes the sense of what fol- 
lows. The violence thus done to Maurel will be shown by a 
glance :i( the parallel columns: 

mai'ki:i, as KOTILATHD Bl ?O0B 0ORB.E. HAlltEL AS I1E 18. 

BPONDBNT. 

"It is infallibly certain that the "All obstacles being removed, 
faithful on earth obtain the it is infallibly certain that the 

fruit o( an indulgence which the faithful on earth obtain the fruit 
Church makes applicable to the of an indulgence which the 
living." Church makes applicable to the 

living." 

The intelligent reader will at once perceive that the omitted 
first clause in your correspondent's quotation, " All obstacles 
being removed," makes all the difference in the world in the 
meaning of MaimTs declaration. 

Maurel, in the paragraph just before this, had said that 
the Churoh "nevertheless confers them (indulgences) only 
within fixed limits on certain occasions, and for legitimate 
reasons." And Maurel, in many parts of his book, insists 
that an indulgence is never granted except when sin has first 
been the subject o( sincere repentance and contrition : and 
that then it only applies to the temporal punishment due to 
sin after the eternal guilt and punishment thereof have been 
forgiven. On the same page from which your correspondent- 
takes a mutilated sentence, Maurel says: 

" But recollect, she (the Church) advances payment at the 
same time she absolves; in other words, from the inexhaust- 
ible mine or treasure composed of the satisfaction oi' Christ 
and the Saints, she takes a portion equivalent in value to the 
indulgence accorded, and applies it to the repentant sinner, 
saying to him, at least in effect: 'Heboid, my child, you 
have been released from a part, or the entire o\' the punish- 
ment due to your sins ; your debt has been totally or par- 
tially liquidated: Jesus Christ, the Blessed Virgin, and the 
Saints, have satisfied for you : be sure to testify your grati- 
tude to them, particularly by the future amendment and 
innocence of your life.*" 



95 

How utterly unfair and misleading is your correspondent's 
quotation of this Catholic writer! He makes him represent 
an indulgence as a thing bought and sold for money, in view 
of Maurel's very explicit assertions to the contrary. Again 
he quotes from the same book on page 33 as follows : 
" When a priest, in the tribunal of penance, absolves a peni- 
tent from his faults and part of the temporal penalty, he 
does not do so without any compensation." He throws the 
last three words into large type-, evidently to convey the 
idea that money payment is the prime condition of gaining 
an indulgence, but again he mutilates Maurel's text and 
meaning. He cuts a sentence in two, omitting in this case 
its concluding and explanatory portion, which reads as fol- 
lows : "for, to satisfy the Divine justice, he applies to that 
soul the price of our Blessed Redeemer's precious blood." 
And to bring out the full meaning of Maurel, J will add 
what he says in the immediately following paragraphs : 

"It is precisely the same in the case of indulgence-, because 
through them as a means, the chief pastors of the Church 
remit the temporal penalties due to sin, by paying them, if 
the expression be allowable, with the satisfaction of Jesus 
Christ and his Saints. For the inspired words of the great 
Apostle admit of no exception : ' Without shedding of blood 
there \* no remission.' (Heb. ix. 22.) This is also the 
reason why the Church, in granting indulgences, by no means 
intends to dispense us from every other obligation. Surely 
it is not her design thereby to release us from the obligation 
of doing penance, of carrying our cross in the footsteps of 
Christ, and of uniting our satisfaction to his ; in fact, she 
could not dispense us from these all-important duties." 

Maurel never says one word about "the vicars of Christ" 
selling indulgences, as your correspondent intimates. 

He next quotes from page 40 of Maurel's book, and again 
mutilates the paragraph from which he quotes. He makes it 
appear that Maurel says the vicars of Christ "sell indul- 
gences," and that in doing so they " invite us to contribute 



96 

towards the propagation of the faith in distant pagan coun- 
tries," etc. But let us read the full text of this passage 
which he mangles from Ma lire 1 : 

"Finally, it may be well to note that in granting (not 
selling) indulgences the vicars of Christ grant (not sell) 
them only for some pious ends that tend to advance the glory 
of God and the salvation of souls. Thus, for example, they 
invite us to contribute towards the propagation of the faith in 
distant pagan countries," etc. 

If your correspondent had paused in his jump from page 
33 to 40 he would have found Maurel declaring as follows on 
pages 36 and 37 : 

"It has been objected by certain heretics, and even by 
some Catholics unworthy of the name, that in unlocking her 
spiritual treasures for her children, the Church merely paves 
the way for relaxation. They have furthermore advanced 
that the bestowal of indulgences is only a permission to sin 
with impunity. We answer that this might be so, if, as our 
enemies blush not to affirm, indulgence exonerated us from 
the obligation of doing penance and of leading Christian 
lives. But, should the very reverse be the case, then we are 
justified in inferring that these rash, fickle-minded beings 
blasphemously comment on what they are totally ignorant 
of, or, at least, what they affect to ignore. We, moreover, 
emphatically assert, that the conditions to be fulfilled in 
order to gain indulgences would exact from most of these 
libertines sacrifices from which their corrupt nature would 
shrink with horror. . . . 

"Yes, happily, it is beyond doubt that indulgences, be 
they what they may, are not obtained without a spirit of 
penance and a life of Christian virtue. As has been stated, 
an Indulgence remits neither sin itself nor its eternal 
penalty, but merely the temporal punishment not yet ex- 
piated. Now this chastisement can be remitted only to 
sinners already reconciled to God ; because, while the sinner 
is at enmity with his Creator, there can be no indulgence 
for him, since our Lord will never cancel the penalty of sin 
as long as the sin itself subsists, or as long as the stain or 
guilt is not blotted out. But, pursuant to the Catholic 
teaching, which is expressly given down in the apostolic 



97 

bulls, an indulgence can be acquired only by a heart that is 
truly contrite and penitent. Vere pcenitentibus et confessis, 
vere contritis ... by a soul in the friendship of God and 
adorned with his grace." 

These extracts certainly suffice to show that your corre- 
spondent has grossly misrepresented the whole spirit and 
meaning of what Maurel has written on the subject of indul- 
gences. With these corrections of his misstatement of that 
eminent Catholic writer, I leave him for the present. 

I have left at the office of the Standard a copy of Maurel's 
book, so that your readers may verify these extracts for 
themselves. I reserve for later notice many other of your 
correspondent's strange assertions on this question, and the 
equally curious use he makes of other authorities whom he 
quotes. 

The doctrine of indulgences is, I may remark in closing, 
one of the most frequently misunderstood and misrepre- 
sented of Catholic doctrines. The very name " indulgence " 
does something to mislead the non-Catholic mind. It is con- 
stantly misconstrued to mean a compounding with sin itself, 
and even with sin to be committed, whereas its meaning is 
exactly the reverse, a remission, namely, after sincere 
penance, of certain temporal penalties for sin, after the sin 
itself and its eternal penalty have been forgiven. 

Misapprehensions as grave as those may be pardoned to 
honest ignorance ; but there is no excuse for misrepresenting 
authorities. It is never the fair controversialist that has 
recourse to garbled quotations. 

I conclude by summarizing some of Swinton's errors about 
indulgences. 

1. Indulgences were never sold by authority of the 
Church . 

2. The Dominican friars did not obtain a monopoly of 
the indulgences in Germany. 



98 

3. Tetzel was not the agent of the Dominican friars, 
but of the Archbishop of Mentz and Magdeburg. 

4. Luther made no serious or genuine attempt to have 
the abuse of indulgences eliminated by the Archbishop of 
Magdeburg, as he posted up his theses almost at the same 
time that he sent his protest to the Archbishop. 

5. Indulgences were never represented by the Church, 
nor even by Tetzel, as pardons of the guilt of sin, or of the 
eternal penalty. 

6. The gainer of an indulgence was not said to be 
released from all his sins thereby, nor from any of them. 

R. J. Johnson. 



THE FACTS ABOUT SWTNTON'S HISTORY. 

LETTER OF THE REV. GEORGE W. COOKE. 
[From the Dedham Standard, Feb. 9, 1889.] 

IX. 

History as taught by the Catholic Church. 

The Catholics object to Swinton's w Outlines of History " ; 
but what is it they would put in it place ? When we have 
carefully considered that question, in the light of their own 
interpretation of history, it is easy to see that it is not S win- 
ton to which they object, so much as the facts, which they 
would like to make other than they are. It is also perfectly 
evident, in the light of their own methods of teaching, that 
Swinton simply serves as an excuse for an attack on the 
public schools. 

"Would the Catholics substitute Anderson's "New Manual 
of General History " for that of Swinton ? This they have 
done in Boston ; but at the price of what dishonesty in the 
author? This work was first published as a "Manual of 



99 

General History," and it condemned the Catholics far more 
severely than does Swinton, however Swinton may be 
interpreted. In 1882 it was made over into the "New 
Manual," and in such a way as to approve it to Catholics. 
Every passage in the old book which condemned the teach- 
ings and acts of the Catholic Church is omitted from the new 
work. The old book said that under Louis IX., in France, 
M the Inquisition was established in Toulouse, and all who 
refused to conform to the tenets of the Church of Rome were 
mercilessly punished." In the new book this passage is 
omitted, because Catholics are very sensitive about the his- 
tory of their Church. Another illustration of the changes 
made is quite significant. It is that where, in the old book, 
the reign of Philip II. is described as being noted for the 
persecution of the Albigenses, and in the new as being noted 
for the rise of the same people. 

A careful comparison of the two works by Anderson 
makes it evident that he has deliberately suppressed his own 
opinions, in order to make a history acceptable to Catholics. 
This appears very clearly when we consider his treatment of 
the Reformation in the new volume. He does not attempt 
in any way to indicate the causes of the Reformation ; these 
he utterly ignores. Nothing is said of abuses, indulgences, 
Leo X., or Tetzel. On page 598, in describing the reign of 
Maximilian I. in Germany, he says : " It was in this reign 
that Martin Luther published his famous ninety-five theses 
against the doctrines of the Catholic Church (1517)." That 
is the beginning and end of what he has to say about the 
opening of the Reformation, and the causes leading thereto. 
No explanation is given of the causes leading to Luther's act. 
Those who have read the theses of Luther mu^t know that 
they were not directed against the doctrines of the Catholic 
Church, for Luther had not at this time rejected even one of 
the doctrines. 



100 

On page 599, Anderson informs the student that "From 
the spread of Luther's tenets grew what is called the Refor- 
mation. . . . Against the revocation of a decree of toleration 
(1529), fifteen imperial cities and seven reigning princes, 
including the Elector of Saxony, protested as being unjust 
and oppressive ; and hence the followers of Luther were 
afterwards called Protestants." This is what we are told 
about one of the most momentous events in human history. 
One page is devoted to this great period ! Why was it not 
passed over entirely, rather than misrepresent it as Ander- 
son has done? 

It is when we look into the books prepared for the paro- 
chial schools of the Catholic Church, that we learn how little 
regard Catholics have for the facts of history. I have care- 
fully examined ten of these books, including readers, geog- 
raphies, and histories. Among these are several of the most 
popular text-books now used in the parochial schools in this 
country. Some of them are very good books, conscien- 
tiously written and with an honest regard for truth ; but all 
of them are written in the interests of Catholicism. They 
are written with the purpose, even the best of them, of mak- 
ing the Catholic Church appear to be the only true Church, and 
as the only genuine cause of progress and civilization in the 
world. In the Preface to the " Third Reader" of the Catho- 
lic National Series of Text-Books, we are told by the com- 
piler, Bishop Gilmour, of Cleveland, that this book, in 
common with the other books of the series, " has one chief 
characteristic, viz., a thoroughly Catholic tone, which will 
be found to pervade the whole book." On examination this 
statement is found to be true, for from first to last it is evi- 
dent the book was prepared with the purpose of imbuing the 
mind of the pupil with the Catholic conception of religion. 
Saints, nuns, masses, and miracles are repeatedly the subjects 
of the reading lessons ; and they are spoken of with the 



101 

same confidence with which the Protestant would speak of 
Jesus Christ. The frontispiece to this book is a picture of 
the birds and beasts doing homage to St. Francis of Assisi ; 
and it very well represents the general spirit of the book. 

It is when we turn to the geographies and histories that 
we learn how the Catholics deal with history in the instruc- 
tion of their children. Sadlier's "History of the United 
States " is a book prepared for the use of schools and col- 
leges. In this book twenty-eight lines are devoted to Wash- 
ington, and thirty-seven to Father Peter de Smet. Abraham 
Lincoln has thirty lines, and nearly fifty are given to Arch- 
bishop Hughes.* Certainly this method of dealing with his- 
tory may have the effect of magnifying the Catholic Church ; 
but it assuredly does not have the effect of keeping in mind 
the true balance and proportion of history. The perspective 
of history is utterly lost by this method, because it estimates 
a man by the standard of his church connections, and not by 
that of his real worth to civilization. That this book aims 
solely at the magnifying of the Church in the minds of the 
pupils, even at the expense of truth, may be readily under- 
stood by reading two of its statements. They are these : 
(1.) "The only systematic and successful attempts to civilize 
and christianize the Indians were made by Catholic mission- 
aries." (2.) "The Independence of the United States was, 
in a great degree, secured by Catholic blood, talent, and treas- 
ure." Every kind of evidence necessary to prove the falsity 
of their statements is known to many intelligent persons. 
They are made in the interest of sectarianism, and their false- 
hood becomes all the more damnable for that reason. f 

Another illustration of the way in which Catholics deal 

* In Swinton's "World's History," the names of Washington and 
Lincoln are not even mentioned at all. 

t See note, of the Appendix, on Catholic Indian Missions, page 219; 
also note, of the Appendix, on Catholic Aid to American Independence, 
page 222. — R. J. J. 



102 

frith history is afforded by Sadlier's "Excelsior Introduction 
to Geography." This book was written by " :i Catholic 
teacher," and it is intended for the use of those who are 
beginning the study of geography. On page 28 a lesson is 
devoted to the history and chief characteristics of the New 
England States. I will quote the whole of that part of the 
lesson devoted to the history of New England, as affording a 
striking illustration of how Catholics use history to strengthen 
the hold of their Church on the minds of children : 

" What was the first settlement in the New England 
States? —Jesuit Mission on Mount Desert Island (in 1612). 

"By whom was the settlement destroyed? — By the 
English. 

"What people made a permanent settlement in Massachu- 
setts in 1C20? — The Pilgrim Fathers. 

"Who were they? — English Protestants; who, being 
persecuted by their Protestant fellow country men, took ref- 
uge in America. 

* How did they act in their new home? — They proved 
very intolerant, and persecuted all who dared to worship God 
in a manner different from that which they had established." 

This very popular book in the parochial schools never loses 
an opportunity to magnify the Catholic Church and its priests. 
In the lesson on the history of the United States there are 
fifteen questions asked and answered, four of which relate to 
Catholicism , and are as follows : 

" Who were the first explorers of great portions of our 
country ? — Catholic missionaries. 

"Who discovered and explored the Upper Mississippi? — 
Father Marquette, a Jesuit missionary. 

" AY here, in many of the States, were the first settlements 
formed? — Around the humble cross that marked the site of 
a Catholic Mission. 

"What Catholic nation very materially assisted the Amer- 
icans during the Revolutionary War? — France. " # 

That one of this series of geographies prepared for ad- 



103 

vanced classes has the same conception of history as the 
primary work. - On page 31 a brief history of each of the 
New England States is given. The following is, in full, 
what is said about the State of Maine : 

"Maine, at the time of the discovery of America, was oc- 
cupied by the Abnaki Indians. 

"As early as 1012, a Jesuit mission for their conversion 
was founded in Mount Desert Island ; but this settlement was 
soon afterwards destroyed by the English. 

"About thirty years later, the Abnakis sent a deputation of 
chiefs to Quebec, to ask for a priest. Their petition was 
granted ; and through the labors of Father Druillettes and 
other Jesuits, this powerful tribe was converted. Even to 
this day, the remnants of the tribe, occupying five villages 
in Canada and Maine, are all Catholics. 

"Maine was admitted to the Union in 1820." 

On page 87 of the same book, it is asserted of Switzer- 
land, that since 1846 "the Catholic cantons have been de- 
prived of freedom in religious matters." This statement is 
entirely untrue, for religious freedom is the law in all the 
cantons, and the Catholics have all the privileges accorded 
to Protestants. This, I suppose, is in harmony with the 
statement of the Preface of this book, that it has been pre- 
pared to supply a long-felt " want of a perfectly truthful 
geography, one that would deal fairly and justly with Catho- 
lic countries and Catholic peoples." * 

Another series of Catholic text-books is the " Comprehen- 
sive Geographies." In the second book of this series, sixty- 
three lines are devoted to the history of the United States, 
but thirty of them are given to the Catholic Church. This 
is the way in which the deeds of the Church are magnified : 

" .Maryland was settled by Catholics in 1634. They were 
the first in the New World to proclaim equal rights to all 
who professed to be Christians. 

* See note, of the Appendix, on Oppression of the Catholic Church in 
Switzerland, page 226. 



101 

" Catholic missionaries, fired with zeal tor the conversion 
of the [ndians, came in great numbers from Europe. 

"The lives of these missionaries arc full of the most heroic 
deeds. To convert the [ndians they endured the greatest 
hardships and privations, and many of thorn suffered cruel 
deaths. 

" They explored the country from north to south and from 
east to west ; discovered rivers, lakes, and waterfalls. 

" They printed and published the. first hooks in America; 
introduced the orange, the vine, and the sugar-cane at the 
South ; raised the first wheat crops in Illinois; discovered 
the sail springs of New York, and the oil springs of Penn- 
sylvania." 

It is not at all true, however, that equal rights in Mary- 
land came because of the tolerant spirit of the Catholics, but 
because they could not secure a charter on any other terms 
than those which gave full recognition to the rights of Prot- 
estants.* 

The third hook of this series, page 13, attributes every 
good thing which has been produced in Europe to the Cath- 
olic Church. "All the great events that have permanently 
influenced the world's history cluster around it, and on its 
influence were directly or indirectly dependent." Here are 
the eleven great labors accomplished by the Catholic Church, 
as enumerated in this book : 

" 1. The establishment of the chair of St. Peter at Home. 
2. The triumph of Constantine. 3. The conversion of the 
Franks. 4. The establishment of the religious orders. 
,"). The foundation of universities and great seats of learn- 
ing, lb The triumph of Pope Gregory VIII. over Henry 
IV. of Germany. 7. The crusades. 8. The extinction 
of slavery in Europe. 9. The independence of the Italian 
cities, secured by the resistance of Pope Alexander III. to 
the Emperor Barbarossa. 10. The discovery of America, 
due mainly to the profound faith of Columbus and the piety 
of Queen Isabella. 11. Society in Europe, threatened both 

* See note on Toleration in Maryland, on page 228 of the Appendix. 



LOS 

with anarchy and despotism, by the Protestant Reformation 
jn the sixteenth century, and by the French Revolution in Hie 
eighteenth century, was preserved in great measure through 
the influence of the Church, which upheld, within due lim 
the principle of authority, as well as the right- of indi- 
viduals." 

We do not find he-re any mention of the Protestant Ref- 
ormation as among the causes through which the world has 
been advanced, but there are also omitted such important 
influences a-, the Renaissance, the invention of printing, the 

marvellous development of science, the great mechanical 
inventions, the progress of popular education, and the estab- 
lishment of methods of free inquiry in all departments of 
knowledge. The world has been helped by such influences 
as these, not through the aid of the Catholic Church, but in 
spite of its opposition to them.* 

Catholics are not modest, however, in putting forth their 
claims for their Church, and Cilmour, in his "Bible History," 
another favorite text-book in the parochial school-, ma 
still more sweeping statements, for b< on page 298 of 

that book; : 

"Nearly all the present governments of Europe 
formed during the Middle .Ages, with their languages and 
laws. When we add to this the abolition of slavery in 
Europe, the civilization of the barbarians, the softening of 
manners, the elevation of women, the Magna Cbarta, trial 
by jury, the habeas corpus, the common law, and the sanctity 
of the home, all the direct result- of the teachings of the 
Catholic Church in the Middle Ages, it will be seen that not 
only the Church has been no obstacle to progress, either in 
nee or art, but that to Catholic- is due the discovery of 
nearly all the valuable invention- ire have. Carefully ex- 
amined it will be seen that with the exception of the steam 
engine and the railroad, little that is really new has been 
discovered other than by Catholic* 

note, on what Catholics have done for Science, in Appendix, page 
232. 



106 

These quotations have been multiplied in order to show 
how thoroughly and constantly the Catholic text-books mis- 
represent history in the interests of the Church. What is 
complained of in Swinton's foot-note becomes the persistent 
method of these books. George W. Cooke. 



CATHOLIC MISREPRESENTATIONS OF PROTESTANTISM. 

LETTER OF THE REV GEORGE W. COOKE. 

[From the Dedham Standard, Feb. 1G, 1889.] 

X. 

The main argument presented against Swinton's History 
by Catholics is, that it misrepresents Catholicism and the 
history of the Catholic Church. They demand historic ac- 
curacy and the suppression of the sectarian spirit on the 
part of Protestants. 

Why should not the Catholics practise what they preach? 
They preach accuracy and tolerance, but they do not carry 
them into their own methods. They would seem to believe 
that accuracy and tolerance are very much needed on the 
part of Protestants in dealing with Catholics, but not on the 
part of Catholics in dealing with Protestants. 

In the school-books, the catechisms, and the histories 
produced by Catholics, Protestantism is frequently and 
grossly misrepresented. A pertinent illustration of this 
may be found in Bishop Gilmour's ft Bible History," which is 
" a compendium of church history for the use of Catholic 
schools in the United States." From page 304 of this book 
I quote two paragraphs, word for word : 

"To make converts, Catholicity has ever appealed to 
reason ; Protestantism, like Mohammedanism, to force and 
violence. In England and Scotland, Protestantism was 
forced upon the people by tines, imprisonment, and death ; 
in Germany and Prussia, Sweden, and Denmark, and Nor- 



107 

way, the same. In America the Puritans acted in like 
manner. 

" Protestantism began with r an open Bible and free inter- 
pretation,' and has ended in division and disbelief. By the 
above principle every one becomes judge of what he will or 
will not believe. Hence among Protestants there are almost 
as many religions as there are individuals, the churches 
divided and torn into pieces, ending in infidelity and Mor- 
monism. On the other hand, Catholicity remains ever the 
same, because Catholicity is truth, and truth changes not." 

On page 309 some of these charges are repeated in a more 
emphatic manner : 

w In the Protestant world faith is rapidly passing away, to 
be replaced by indifference or positive hostility to religion. 
The sects have lost their power, are divided and torn among 
themselves, their only bond of unity being a common hos- 
tility to Catholicity. The Protestant world seems to have 
lost confidence in revelation to save the world, and is falling 
back upon education, hoping that men will be saved by a 
knowledge of science without religion, forgetting, seem- 
ingly, that man is a spiritual being and needs religion to 
purify and guide, and keep his unruly passions subject to 
reason." 

It is astonishing that a Church which for centuries made 
use of the Inquisition, should charge Protestantism with 
making converts by the means of force.* That a Church 

* The implied accusation that the Church authorized the Inquisition to 
make use of force in making converts is untrue; it is simply an anti-Catho- 
lic campaign lie. Very extraordinary misconceptions obtain as to the rela- 
tion which the Church held to the Spanish Inquisition. 

Leopold von Ranke, whom Mr. Cooke himself (page 76) calls "the 
greatest of Church historians," and characterizes as " never sectarian," 
" always moderate and perfectly fair," says in his " History of the Popes " 
(Vol. II., page 422) : " The Roman Court would not hear of conversions 
effected by armed apostles. It was not of such methods that Christ 
availed himself ; men must be led to the temple but not dragged into it." 
The same author, in his work, " The Ottoman and Spanish Empires in the 
Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries," says : "The Inquisition was a royal 
court of judicature . . . the inquisitors were royal officers. The kings 
had the right of appointing and dismissing them. ... It was in spirit and 



108 

guilty of the massacre of St. Bartholomew should charge 
another with violence, is of all things strange and unseemly.* 
And why should not Catholics look at home for infidelity 
and unbelief? The thinking men of France, its legislators, its 
political economists, its editors, its scientists, its writers and 
poets, are almost without exception men who openly reject 
what the Church teaches. It is so in Italy ; it is so in every 
progressive Catholic country without exception. The intel- 
ligence of the European world to-day is not on the side of 

tendency, above all, a political institution. The Pope had an interest in 
the thwarting of it; and he did so, and as often as he could. But the 
king had an interest in constantly upholding it." 

Cardinal Manning, who certainly knows what the teaching and spirit of 
the Catholic Church is, declares that " faith is an act of the will, and that 
to force men to profess what they do not believe is contrary to the law of 
God, and that to generate faith by force is morally impossible." 

According to these authorities (and Guizot supports Ranke), it is evi- 
dent that the Church did not make converts by force and was not at all 
responsible for the evil doings of the Inquisition. — R. J. J. 

* This is another of Mr. Cooke's libels of the Catholic Church. There 
is no truth in the scandalous imputation here made. The St. Bartholomew 
massacre has been execrated by Catholics equally with Protestants. 

Guizot says that when Pope Gregory XIII. learned the full truth about 
the massacre, he expressed his horror of the deed, even to tears. (Guizot's 
History of France, Vol. IV., page 384.) 

Even the partisan Baird, of whose work the Church Quarterly Beview 
(Protestant) says that, " On every page his innate and irrepressible sym- 
pathy . . . with the Reformers, rather than with the Roman Catholics, is 
open and undisguised," declares (Vol. II., page 564) that " Contrary to the 
firm persuasion of the Protestants, who wrote contemporary accounts of 
the massacre, we must, in all probability, . . . acquit Gregory XIII. 
of any knowledge of the disaster impending over the Admiral and the 
Huguenots." 

J. Gilmary Shea, in his article on this subject, says that even the London 
Athenaeum has made "the admission that the common view of St. Bai*- 
tholomew massacre is one of the great historical errors which has been 
transmitted from teachers to taught during a long course of years." 

Summing up the whole testimony on this subject of the St. Barthol- 
omew massacre, a Catholic writer says : "The accusation that the Cath- 
olic Church was in any way guilty of the massacre has not only no 
grounds, but no shadow of a ground to rest upon, and is the pure inven- 
tion of a stupid and malignant bigotry, regardless alike of rational prob- 
ability and of historical truth." 



109 

the Catholic Church. This may be seen very clearly in the 
attitude of the legislators of such countries as France, Aus- 
tria, and Italy, countries which deal with education and all 
kindred subjects from a purely secular point of view. It is 
in countries such as these, where there is a nominal accept- 
ance of Catholicism, that infidelity is working the greatest 
evils.* 

A book in use in the parochial schools is the "Modern 
History," by the Rev. P. F. Gazeau. It gives an account 
of the Reformation, and one that misrepresents every part 
taken in it by the reformers. Can one read these words, 
from pages 62 to 65, without feeling that the spirit of toler- 
ance and historic justice is not here? 

* This is another exhibition of Mr. Cooke's brilliant gift of dogmatic 
assertion. The reader already knows with what ease and grace he makes the 
most serious and, if true, alarming statements, without offering any proof 
in their support. " The thinking men of France are almost without excep- 
tion men who openly reject what the Church teaches." Who says so? Mr. 
Cooke, of Dedham, says so. Does he cite any authority or give us any 
statistics to confirm this very grave assertion? Naturally, this is quite un- 
necessary. Does not Mr. Cooke, of Dedham, carry the critical and reli- 
gious census of France about with him? Does he not know, by intuition, the 
religious views of all the French legislators, editors, scientists, and poets? 
And are not the rest of the " thinking men " of that country all catalogued 
in his roomy and clairvoyant mind? Therefore, he can tell us, with a con- 
fidence which makes corroborative authority quite superfluous, that they 
are all anti-Catholics. " The intelligence of the European world to-day is 
not on the side of the Catholic Church," is Mr. Cooke's decision, and it 
would be unseemly to press for any evidence to sustain so conclusive a 
judgment. What is the use of a mind so authoritative, a judgment so 
conclusive as Mr. Cooke's, if, whenever he pronounces upon questions 
like these, he is to be asked to give references and authorities? It is true 
that writers of high repute, many of them resident in Europe (which some 
would say was a better place of observation for this purpose than Ded- 
ham), as well as ample statistics, declare that the Catholic Church is not 
losing but gaining ground, not in Europe only but all over the world. 
But when Mr. Cooke dives down into the somewhat turbid deep of his 
inner consciousness and brings up a glittering pearl of truth, who shall 
presume to talk about dull facts and authorities? If facts and authorities 
are at variance with Mr. Cooke's discoveries, so much the worse for the 
facts! — R. J. J. 



110 

" Wicked men are always disposed to rebel against author- 
ity. The sale of indulgences and the word 'reform' were 
simply made the pretext by the able but unprincipled Luther 
for the outburst of the storm that was to devastate Europe 
and break, up the spiritual unity of Christendom. . . . He 
caught the ear of his audience by appealing to a false spirit 
of nationality, abusing Rome and the pope, and flattering 
the national pride of intellect. His doctrines, of which, 
justification by faith alone, without good works, formed the 
basis, spread like wildfire and created immense commotion. 
At a time when laxity of morals widely prevailed, to tell 
men that, provided they believe in Christ, it mattered little 
what they did, was to justify all evil actions. . . . The pre- 
tended reformer respected the laws of morality no more than 
those of justice: he permitted Philip, Landgrave of Hesse, 
in defiance of the express prohibition of Jesus Christ, to 
have two wives at the same time, nor did he himself scruple 
to commit the double sacrilege of marrying a nun. To jus- 
tify his enormities he said that he was inspired by Heaven, 
and openly vented his spleen on the Sovereign Pontiff and 
other champions of the faith. No one can peruse without a 
blush of shame and indignation the coarse jests, the buffoon- 
ery, and the indecencies with which his works are sullied ; 
and it is difficult to conceive how such a leader could have 
found followers, were it not known what power passion, 
pride, money, and pleasure have over the human heart." 

This is the man Martin Luther becomes when his history 
is taught in the parochial schools ! No Protestant thinks 
Luther was a perfect man, but surely he was no such man 
as this. Genuine history has not made him thus to appear. 
The evidence is abundant which proves he was no pretender, 
no lover of evil, no self-seeker. He stands out in history as 
one of the most honest, sincere, and heart-whole among men, 
whatever may be said by Gazeau or any other writer of 
parochial text-books. 

Here is "The Catechism of Perseverance," another favorite 
book among Catholics. It has this to say about Protestants : 

"In order to know that Protestantism is a false religion, 
or rather no religion at all, it will be sufficient simply to 



Ill 

bear in mind : First, that it was established by four great 
libertines ; second, that it owes its origin to the love of 
honors, covetousness of goods of others, and the love of sen- 
sual pleasures, three things forbidden by the gospel; third, 
that it permits you to believe whatever you please, and to 
do whatever you believe ; fourth, that it has caused immense 
evils, deluged Germany, France, Switzerland, and England 
with blood ; it leads to impiety, and finally to indifference, 
the source of all revolutions past and present. We must, 
therefore, be on our guard against those who preach it, and 
cherish a horror for the books which disseminate it." 

I am inclined to think these quotations prove that Cath- 
olics write history in such a manner that their own Church is 
made to appear always in the right. Protestantism is mis- 
represented, its doctrines perverted, and its defects exagger- 
ated. This being the case, it does not appear well for Cath- 
olics to complain of Swinton. Their worst charges against 
him, if all true, would not compare with the misrepresenta- 
tion and sectarianism to be found in many of the Catholic 
text-books. History is taught in the parochial schools with 
a distinctly sectarian purpose, with a purpose of making the 
pupils Catholics and devotedly attached to the Church. 

The quotations taken from the Catholic school-books have 
been multiplied in order to convince the reader that what 
has been complained of in these books is a characteristic in- 
herent in the very method of all which have been mentioned. 
It is not so much complained that the statements put forth 
in these books are untrue, as that they distort history by 
neglecting its true proportions.* Have none of the Protes- 
tant bodies done anything in the United States ? One would 

* Mr. Cooke must excuse Catholics if they decline to accept his judg- 
ment as to what is or is not a good historical text-book. A man who, 
after carefully reading it, found Swinton's book accurate and impartial, 
and offered to substantiate every word of it " by a consensus of unbiased 
historians," — which, in view of the many gross errors which Protestant 
authorities acknowledge it to contain, is an obvious absurdity, — cannot 
expect Catholics to defer to him as a critic of any historical text-book, 
"whether used in parochial or public schools. — R. J. J. 



112 

not get the least idea that they had done any good work 
whatever by the reading of these books. Everything good 
in them, every word of praise, is reserved for Catholics. 
For one, I am not in the least inclined to minimize the noble 
work of the Jesuits in the exploration and development of 
America ; but I cannot forget that others did as much or 
more. What I believe in is, the recognition of all historic 
truth, so far as we can find it out ; and the teaching of it to 
our children. Let us have the truth of history, whoever it 
may show to have been in fault in the past.* Now the teach- 
ing of history to support our own party can be only an evil,, 
for it perverts the mind and it takes away from history the 
lessons it ought to teach us. 

Not only did the Catholics accomplish much in the colonial 
days of the United States, but the Puritans, the Friends, 
the Baptists, the Moravians, and other religious bodies also 
accomplished much. Some of these denominations, notably 
the Friends and the Moravians, did much for the Indians ; 
but they did it in a more peaceable and a more Christian 
spirit than was shown by the Catholics. The Catholic text- 
books utterly ignore these other denominations, and say not 
one word of their good deeds. This may be an unpreju- 
diced and truthful way of writing and teaching history ; but 
I am not able so to understand it. To me it seems a most 
pernicious way, and a way calculated to pervert the minds 
of children, and to make men and women suppose that to be 
truth which is not truth. 

Then again, why should there be Catholic histories, 
geographies, readers, grammars, and arithmetics? Suppos- 

* Yes, by all means let us have the truth of history, but Mr. Cooke will 
never succeed in palming off his crude and uninformed conceptions of " the 
truth of history" as the genuine thing itself. "The truth of history " is 
accessible, but Mr. Cooke has not gone to the right sources for it ; it is- 
not to be found in the " No-Popery " leaflets. — R. J. J. 



113 

ing every religious body prepared its own text-books, and 
that Methodists, Baptists, Episcopalians, Congregatioualists, 
and Universalists, with each of the other denominations, as 
well as Mormons, Spiritualists, and Ingersollites, all pre- 
pared school-books to agree with their own special teachings. 
AVe can easily conceive what this would lead to ; that it 
would destroy the school system of the country ; that it would 
vastly increase the ignorance with which we have to contend, 
and that it would, worst of all, foster the spirit of sectari- 
anism until it became everywhere the ruling power in our 
land. This is a result Protestants do not desire. Do Cath- 
olics desire it? It would seem so by the books from which 
they teach their children, — books that are calculated to make 
devoted Catholics, but not to make intelligent men and 
women or faithful citizens of a free country. 

George W. Cooke. 



MR. COOKE'S LETTERS REVIEWED. 

NON-FULFILMENT OF HIS PROMISE TO SUBSTANTIATE EVERY WORD 
IN SWINTOX'S TEXT-BOOK. — REV. R. J. JOHNSON RECALLS THE 
DISCUSSION TO THE TRUE ISSUE. 

[From the Dedham Standard, Feb. 23, 1889. J 

In any serious discussion the time comes when it is neces- 
sary to hold one's opponent to the essential question at 
issue, and to recall him from the side questions which have 
no bearing upon it, but which are so easily brought into a 
debate to the confusion of argument. 

I have been an attentive reader of the letters that the Rev. 
George W. Cooke has written in the attempted fulfilment 
of his purpose to show "that Swinton has not been unjust 
to the Catholic Church, and that he does not misrepresent its 
teachings of the Reformation era," and I have been im- 
pressed, first of all, with the dexterity shown by this adroit 



114 

disputant in shifting the ground of controversy, so as to 
almost completely change the issue between us. Let me 
recall to your readers exactly what he promised in his letter 
of Dec. 22 to- show. These are his words : "I believe the fact 
is that Swinton understates rather than overstates the case 
against the Catholic Church at the time of the Reformation." 
Observe, please, that it is Swinton's ease "against the 
Catholic Church" that, Dec. 22, your correspondent calls 
"understated." Then came his promise : 

" Since the question has been raised by Mr. Johnson, I 
propose to say something at another time on the subject of 
indulgences, with the purpose of showing that Swinton has 
not been unjust to the Catholic Church, and that he does not 
misrepresent its teachings of the Reformation era. What the 
Catholic Church teaches now is not the question in contro- 
versy, but what it taught at the time of Luther. Aconscnsus 
of unbiased historians will prove that Luther had just cause 
for the protest he made aga inst the corrupt ions of the Church. 
Such a consensus will substantiate every word contained in 
Swinton's History." 

The emphasis above used is mine. I desire to direct 
special attention to the emphatic words ; and first, let us 
observe just what it was that your correspondent, on Dec. 
22, plainly had "the purpose of showing." He was to show, 
as you see, that Swinton hud not been " unjust to the Catholic 
Church" and that he "does not misrepresent its teachings." 
He was to show that Swinton correctly states " what it 
taught" — that is, the Church — "at the time of Luther." 

That was the intention, and it could not have been stated 
in clearer terms. It was the Catholic Church and its teach- 
ings that were to be shown to be justly and fairly repre- 
sented in Swinton's book. But in the very first letter of the 
series in which this was to be done, I find instead that your 
correspondent practically abandons the effort to do so, and 
seeks to give an entirely new direction to the controversy. 
In this first letter of the series (published Jan. 19), this 



115 

dexterous disputant, who, a month earlier, was going to jus- 
tify Swinton's statements about indulgences as fairly repre- 
senting the Catholic Church's teaching, discovers instead that 
Swinton did not mean his statements to he taken as repre- 
senting the teaching of the Church itself at all, but only as 
representing the teaching of "some of its over-zealous mem- 
bers." Hear him on Jan. 19 : 

"This is Swinton's account of the origin of Protestantism, 
and the foot-note is the chief cause of complaint by the Cath- 
olics. A careful and fair-minded reading of the whole pas- 
sage, as cited, together with the loot-note," ought to make it 
evident that Swinton does not say that the Church taught, as 
one of its doctrines, that ' the purchaser of indulgence was 
delivered from all his sins.' His language bears the fair in- 
terpretation that he charged this teaching, not upon the 
Church, but upon some of its over-zealous members. When 
all that he says about the Catholic Church is taken into con- 
sideration, and the liberality with which he speaks of it 
everywhere else, this interpretation is the only one which 
can justly be given to his words. With this interpretation, 
which ought to be accepted, when there is no good reason for 
any other, the charge against Swinton falls to the ground." 

The essential difference between what your correspondent 
promised to show us in December, 1888, and what he tried 
to show us in January, 1881), is at once apparent. At the 
former date he declared that Mr. Swinton had understated 
"the case against the Catholic Church," and that his note on 
indulgences "did not misrepresent its teachings of the Refor- 
mation era." At the latter date your correspondent finds 
that Mr. Swinton, in the same note, did not refer at all to 
the teaching of the Church, but only to "some of its over- 
zealous members." There are twenty-eight 'lays between 
Dec. 22 and Jan. 19. It is a fair inference, and one 
that is creditable to your correspondent's thirst for knowl- 
edge, that during that interval he had begun to read the 
history of the Lutheran era, and had convinced himself 



116 

that Swinton's statements could not be defended if they were 
taken as definitive of the Catholic Church's teaching. Hence, 
with admirable agility, he lets himself down to the milder 
position that Swinton's statements are all right, if they 
are interpreted not to apply to the Church (as he said 
on Dec. 22 last), but merely to " some of its over-zealous 
members." Facllis descensus. The abandonment of the 
original contention might have been made with more frank- 
ness, but not with more facility. Mr. Cooke is hardly 
ingenuous, but he is certainly ingenious. 

Less ingenuous and not nearly so ingenious, as it seems to 
me, is the next effort of your correspondent. Immediately 
after insisting that Swinton's foot-note about indulgences does 
not refer to the Church's teaching, nor correctly represent it, 
he seeks to show that Svvinton does give " a true interpreta- 
tion of the teaching and practice of the Catholic Church in 
the matter of indulgences." Now if a thing is black it can- 
not be white, and if white, it is not black. Swinton no- 
where gives an interpretation of the teaching and practice of 
the Catholic Church in the matter of indulgences, except in 
the foot-note complained of by Catholics as misrepresenting 
the teaching of their Church. Now your correspondent 
insists that this note does not charge this teaching upon the 
Church, but only " upon some of its members." How, if 
that be the case, can he, with any regard to reason or logic, 
cite authorities to show that Swinton "gives a true interpre- 
tation of the teaching and practice of the Catholic Church, 
in the matter of indulgences"? Nowhere in the "Outlines," 
except in this note, is any definition given of indulgences ; 
and this foot-note, we are now assured, does not refer to the 
Church's teaching, but merely to that of " some of its over- 
zealous members." And yet, right on the heels of this dec- 
laration, we are invited to listen to authorities who endorse 
Swinton as divine: " a true interpretation " of the teaching and 



117 

practice, not of " some of its over-zealous members," but of 
"the Catholic Church." This is the same thing as it would 
be for a man charged with homicide to set up two conflicting 
pleas at the same time : first, an alibi, that he was no- 
where near the scene of the crime ; and secondly, that he 
killed the man in self-defence. If Swinton does not state 
the Catholic Church's teaching at all in his foot-note, that is 
one thing. If he gives " a true interpretation " of it, that is 
quite another thing. But your correspondent claims almost 
in the same breath that Swinton does and does not ; first, 
that the foot-note does not refer to the Church's teaching at all, 
and then that it " gives a true interpretation " of that teaching. 

I am sure that my readers will sympathize with me in the 
peculiar difficulties of dealing with a controversialist who 
faces two opposite ways at once. I will try, however, to 
accommodate myself to the contrariety of his arguments. 
And first, setting aside for the time being his asseveration 
that the foot-note does not refer to the Church's teaching, let 
us look at the authorities by which your correspondent would 
show that the note is entirely right, and does represent with 
fairness and justice the teaching of the Church. 

Mr. Edwin D. Mead is first cited as saying "that this note 
states the substantial truth of history." * Rev. Dr. A. A. 
Miner is next cited as saying that " its definition of indul- 
gences is undeniably correct." f Then follows a quotation 
from a petition signed by several ministers and laymen of the 
Evangelical Alliance (a body upon whose strict impartiality 
and freedom from sectarian bias your correspondent, strangely 
enough, omits to insist !), in which it is said that " the para- 
graph which led to the book's ejection contained a true state- 
ment of history." This is another square endorsement of the 
foot-note complained of t»y Catholics for its injustice to their 

* See foot-note on page 55. t See foot-note on page 66. 



118 

faith. The petition of the Evangelical Alliance, thus referred 
to, prayed for a restoration of the text-book in the Boston 
schools, and gave these three reasons for this restoration : 

1. The book has had a long and honorable tenure of our 
public schools (ten years' use). 

2. The paragraphs and foot-note, on account of which the 
book has been rejected, contain a true statement of history. 

l 3. The book ejected is upon the expurgatory lists of 
books of a certain religious sect. 

The Boston Post, a paper that is well known to be under 
able Protestant editorial direction, and that cannot be sus- 
pected of showing any undue regard for Catholic interests, 
comments, in its issue of Sept. 29, 1888, upon these three 
reasons of the Evangelical Alliance, as follows : 

"The first and third reasons put forward by the Evangeli- 
cal Alliance do not require much consideration. The first 
amounts to saying that no abuse of long standing should be 
corrected : and the third, the argument that a particular book 
should be used in a non-sectarian school, because it is par- 
ticularly objectionable to a certain number of our citizens, is 
so unreasonable as to be almost humorous. The second 
objection is not one whit more fair. It is undeniable, indeed, 
that the foot-note stating that an indulgence has been r repre- 
sented as a permission to commit sin," contains a true state- 
ment o( history, for such representations have falsely so 
been made. But how would the members of the Evangelical 
Alliance relish the following statements in the foot-note of a 
school text-book? — 'Luther is represented to have turned 
reformer because he was enraged that the selling of indul- 
gences had not been committed to his order alone/ Such an 
account of the Reformation would, oi' course, be misleading 
to the last degree, and yet precisely this representation has 
been made, and not by Catholic authority either, but by an 
English writer of world-wide reputation." 

The remarks of the Post on the petition which your cor- 
respondent cites to sustain his position leave nothing more 
to be said on that point, and 1 pass on to the next. The 
Evangelist is next cited by him as saying of Swinton's foot- 
note that " it seems to us a very fair statement of the facts 



119 

of the pardoner's trade as it existed at the time." But that 
opinion does not so much as touch the point at issue, which 
is, not whether the foot-note states "the facts of the par- 
doner's trade at the time," but whether it states the teaching 
of the Catholic Church at that time, or at any time. The 
next quotation by your correspondent is from the .Congrega- 
tionalist of Nov. 29, which said: 

' f The general estimate of the Inquisition which it presents, 
and most of its special declarations, are historically correct, 
and ought to be taught." 

But this quotation in no way bears upon the disputed point. 
"The general estimate of the Inquisition " is not what we 
are discussing ; the doctrine of the Catholic Church on indul- 
gences is the subject of controversy. The Congregationalufs 
opinion on indulgences has been squarely given, however, 
and here it is : 

"The question, what did the purchasers of indulgences in 
Luther's day actually represent them to be? is exciting con- 
siderable interest in Boston because of the transfer by the 
School Committee of a High School instructor from the 
department of history, for teaching, among other things, 
that in process of time they were represented as actual par- 
dons of guilt, and the purchaser of an indulgence was said 
to be delivered from all his sins. The book, 'Swinton's Out- 
lines of History,' in which this passage is found, has also 
been removed from the schools. It will be seen by any one 
who consults Dr. Fisher'.-; able exposition of the subject, on 
the first page, that the sentence just quoted is one of those 
inaccurate and misleading generalizations which are to be 
found in too many of our short school histories. That there 
were flagrant abuses connected with the sale of indulgences, 
is acknowledged by all fair-minded Catholic historians; but 
that any accredited authority of the Roman Church was accus- 
tomed to commend these indulgences as pardons of guilt, is 
an assertion unsupported by the facts of history. In our 
controversy with Catholics, we have strong ground, and 
there is no occasion to weaken our position by an over-state- 
ment, not to say mis-statement, of the evils historically con- 
nected with the Roman Church." 



120 

Your correspondent, in his letter of Jan. 19, commends 
the Congregational ist as " another able religious journal," and 
I am encouraged to hope, therefore, that he will give some 
weight to its view above quoted. R. J. Johnson. 



OTHER AUTHORITIES EXAMINED. 

THE " CONSENSUS OF UNBIASED HISTORIANS." 
[From theJDedhani Standard, March 2, 1889.] 

In my last I reviewed some of the arguments and authori- 
ties by which your correspondent has recently sought to 
prove the unprovable and establish the impossible ; namely, 
that the Catholic Church of Luther's time, or any other time, 
represented that " an indulgence was a pardon of guilt," and 
that " the purchaser of indulgences was said to be free from 
all sins." In the present letter I will further discuss the 
arguments which he draws from his citations. 

The Boston Transcript is his next authority ; and but for 
one circumstance, your correspondent would be fairly enough 
entitled to whatever weight the opinion of that journal has. 
Since expressing the opinion which he quoted from its col- 
umns, the Transcript has published severely critical notices 
of the text-book in question in its issues of Feb. 4 and 8, in 
which many errors which it contains are pointed out. Thus 
the Transcript has practically receded from its defence of 
Swinton's " Outlines." As to its early position the Tran- 
script took the same point of view as that of the Evangelical 
Alliance. 

The Boston Record is also cited in favor of Swinton, but I 
do not find in its editorial columns for June 20 the opinion 
attributed to it by your correspondent. But the Advertiser 
of that date, which is the Record's morning issue, and is con- 
ducted by the same editors, has given its opinion very em- 
phatically to the contrary. Contrasting Swinton's " Outlines " 



121 

with Prof. Fisher's "Outlines," the Advertiser has editorially 
said : 

" Those people who are crying out against the School 
Board for its action in voting to drop from the list of text- 
books Swinton's ' Outlines of the World's History,' would do 
well to consider whether they would be willing to have a text- 
book used in the public schools of Boston which could be 
made the basis of a slanderous misrepresentation of the various 
religious sects to which they are attached. ... A reader of 
Swinton would conclude that it was the Roman Catholic 
Church by which these indulgences f in process of time' came 
to be f represented as actual pardons of guilt ' ; while the 
reader of Fisher would understand that this impression was 
created in the popular mind solely by the way in which 'the 
business was managed in Germany at the time.' an under- 
standing confirmed by everything that this most eminent 
church historian has written on the subject ; an understand- 
ing sanctioned by every Protestant writer of recognized 
authority in Europe and America." 

Your correspondent next refers to the Boston Herald of 
July 14 last, which paper he quotes as saying that Swinton's 
statement as to indulgences " is fully sustained by all acknowl- 
edged authorities." But by reference to the file of the 
Herald, for that date, I find that this opinion does not appear 
at all in its editorial columns. It is copied from a news 
article, into which it was injected by an anonymous writer 
for whose views the Herald cannot be held responsible. 

By what canon, either of ethics or of fair play, does your 
correspondent come to quote a reporter's remark as if it were 
the editorial utterance of a great newspaper? This, cer- 
tainly, is not quite within the rules of legitimate discussion. 
The Boston Herald is, however, on record in its editorial 
column on this subject, as follows : 

"It shows the correctness of the action of the Boston 
School Committee, in the matter of Mr. Swinton's History, 
that nearly the whole religious press, without regard to 
creed, sustains their position, so far as it is plain they are 



122 

against sectarianism in the schools. It seems to be the 
settled conviction of different people that absolute impar- 
tiality of creed be reached in these schools ; and now that 
the smoke of this contest has cleared away, it is gratifying 
to find that the School Committee has the substantial endorse- 
ment of those who are not only quick to detect anything 
wrong, but good weather signs of the feeling among the 
conservative and thoughtful citizens." 

The above editorial opinion of the Herald appears in an issue 
of later date (Oct. 7) than that from which your correspond- 
ent quotes a reporter's paragraph, so that we are certainly 
justified in assuming that this is its best considered judg- 
ment, if, indeed, the paragraph printed outside of its edito- 
rial columns of July 14 can be regarded as in any sense 
giving the opinion of the paper. 

I now come to a statement of your correspondent which 
must have amazed your readers, as it did me when I first 
read it. He says that " in the Boston Globe of Oct. 6, 1888,* 
was printed an interview with Vicar-General Byrne, a lead- 
ing Catholic official, who declared Swinton does not misrep- 
resent the Catholic Church in what he says about indul- 
gences." This was news to me, — news of the kind to 
which the newspapers put the familiar head-line, "Impor- 
tant, if true." Your correspondent quotes from the Vicar- 
General's Globe interview a passage in which he says that 
Swinton is not open to the charge of having stated in his 
"Outlines " that an indulgence was a license to commit sin. 
The quotation is misleading, because it is taken out of its 
connection with what goes before and follows after, in the 
Globe interview-. But I will let the Vicar-General himself 
expose the injustice which your correspondent does him. I 
have received from him the following letter : 

* It appeared in the Globe of Oct. 7, 1688. — E. J. J. 



123 

No. 6 Allen Street, 

Boston, Jan. 19, 1889. 
Eev. R. J. Johnson : 

Reverend and Dear Sir, — I notice that Mr. George W. 
Cooke quotes rne as saying that " Swinton does not misrep- 
resent the Catholic Church in what he says about indulgence." 
This is not true. In the interview he quotes from he might 
have seen that I say that " The true and all-sufficient objec- 
tion to Swinton's 'Outlines' is, that he says, or implies, that 
indulgences came to be regarded as pardons for sin." His 
foot-note is, in fact, worse than this, as he says : " Indul- 
gences came in time to be represented as pardons of sin." 
The inevitable inference from this is that they were so rep- 
resented by the authority of the Church. 

The mistake I absolve Swinton from is the vulgar error 
that indulgences are licenses to commit sin, which he is more 
fortunate than some text-book compilers in escaping. 

Yours truly, 

William Byrne, V. G. 

It seems to me that, in the face of such a palpable attempt 
to misquote and distort the views actually expressed by the 
Vicar-General, I ought to quote at some length from his 
interview in order to show how utterly in conflict those views 
are with the opinions sought to be put upon him by your 
correspondent. Said Vicar-General Byrne to the Globe 
interviewer : 

"The true objection and the all-sufficient objection to 
Swinton's book is, that he says, or implies, that indulgences 
came to be regarded as pardons for sin that could be pur- 
chased for money, even by those who had no notion of 
changing their lives or abandoning their sinful courses. 
Such a general and sweeping statement as that is not and 
never was true. That there might be found a few here and 
there ignorant enough and stupid enough to think so, I 
admit. But these few do not justify any school historian in 
making such a statement, so well calculated to shock and 
scandalize the little ones of the Catholic faith. The injury 
that may be done to the faith in immature minds by a gen- 
eral statement of that kind is incalculable, and makes us 



121 

shudder to think how much mischief this text-book may 
have done in years gone by, and convinces us more and 
more that the Catholic authorities of this diocese have begun 
none too soon to take measures to protect Catholic children 
from such false and damaging teaching. Wiry, it is one of 
the most barefaced attempts that I ever saw, to use the pub- 
lic schools for the purpose of bringing the Catholic Church 
into odium and contempt, and thus play into the hands of 
the sects, in professedly non-sectarian schools. I do not see 
liow the true friends of the public schools — and they are in 
the majority — can help approving of the action of the School 
Board and sustaining that body." 

In conclusion he said : " One thing is certain : Swinton * 
never charged Tetzel with giving this false definition of an 
indulgence." 

The reader who has followed these letters in the columns 
of the Standard will see that the last three lines of the in- 
terview were quoted by your correspondent, omitting all that 
goes before, and were quoted in such conjunction with the 
paragraph that went immediately before the above quotation 
as to leave the net impression on the reader's mind that 
Vicar-General Byrne had said that Swinton's "Outlines" did 
not misrepresent the Catholic Church. I forbear to charac- 
terize this method of controversy, further than to remark 
that it is not over-scrupulous or high-minded. 

The controversy is in that stage where all attempts to 
obscure and confuse the real and only points at issue must 
fail. Swinton's note on indulgences makes a statement of 
Catholic teaching and practice which is, at the very least, 
misleading, by reason of its withholding a part of the truth 
and only partially stating the truth at all. It thus does vio- 
lence to the consciences of Catholics, affronts their religious 
faith, and exposes the teachings of their Church to false and 
libellous representation. That it does this is conceded by 

* This is a slip of the interviewer's pen, no doubt. For "Swinton" 
read " Luther" to get what the Vicar-General actually said. — R. J. J. 



125 

the ablest Protestant writers. Prof. Charles Kendall Adams, 
whom your correspondent has himself designated as " the 
highest historical authority we have in this country," says 
in an able paper (which appeared in full in your issue of 
Jan. 12) as follows : 

" The point at issue is not a mere question as to the 
historic accuracy of Swinton's accouut of the Reformation ; 
it is whether the account given has the color which may reason- 
ably be regarded as inaccurate and offensive by the parents of 
Catholic children. While it might not be easy to point out 
a single positive mis-statement in Swinton's narrative, the 
general impression inevitably left on the pupil's mind is one 
of strong bias in opposition to the Catholic Church and in 
favor of Luther. It may tell the truth, but it does not tell 
the whole truth ; and this is equivalent to saying that it tells 
a part of truth, and presents it in such a way as at least to 
have the effect of a partial falsehood. It preaches the Prot- 
estant doctrine ; it omits to preach the Catholic doctrine." 

And, referring to views held by Catholic writers con- 
cerning Luther and the Reformation, Prof. Adams says 
further : 

"That this view of the case is believed to be the correct 
one by a great many honest minds, there is no doubt what- 
ever ; and to compel a person who does take this view of the 
case to send his children to a school, or to be taxed for a 
school, where the Protestant view and the Protestant view 
alone is taught, is as unjustifiable and absurd as it would be 
to force Protestants into a similar position, if at some time 
the Catholics should get the upper hand and the tables 
should be turned. And if under such circumstances, Prot- 
estants w 7 ould not submit, it is simply rank injustice to 
demand that Catholics shall submit simply because the power 
at present happens to be iu Protestant hands." 

This puts^the case in its true light. It is not a question of 
whether Tetzel and others in his day abused the doctrine 
of indulgences and brought scandal on the Church. The 
question is, Did the Catholic Church ever authorize, sanction, 



126 

or in any way countenance such abuses and scandals ? Swin- 
ton's "Outlines," as it is admitted by all the eminent Prot- 
estant writers and scholars whom I have before quoted, 
allows the inference to be drawn — in fact, it plainly suggests 
the inference — that the Catholic Church did this. 

That is utterly false. The Catholic Church never taught, 
or sanctioned the teaching of, the doctrine of indulgences 
as defined by Swinton. Your correspondent will vainly 
try to give his note an innocent character, and to show 
that it does not refer to the Church as such, but only to 
" some of its over-zealous members." The ablest minds 
of the country, as I have shown, are agreed that the note 
leaves it to be directly and naturally inferred that the Church 
itself was the abuser of indulgences as therein described. 
The Boston Beacon, June 23, 1888, brings out this point 
clearly. It says : 

"Mr. Swinton's statement really conveys the idea that the 
Catholic Church treats indulgences as actual pardons of 
guilt, and sells them for cash. For very naturally the 
second sentence of Mr. Swinton, being connected with the 
first in a separate note, is understood to represent the posi- 
tion of the Church in later ages, precisely as the first repre- 
sents the belief of the Church in the early ages. The sentence 
would be unobjectionable if Mr. Swinton inserted the words 
' by ignorant or unfriendly persons ' after the word ' repre- 
sented.' The statement as now printed in the book is not 
legitimate." 

A fair presentation of the whole subject, showing a just 
appreciation by a Protestant writer of the real root of offence 
to Catholics in Swinton's foot-note, is given in a letter by 
Ex-Senator H. Winn to the Boston Herald, Dec. 11, 1888. 
Writing of the definition of indulgences given in the foot- 
note, Mr. AVinn says : 

"This definition offends our friends, the Catholics, we 
understand, because it contains the basis of a false inference 



127 

injurious to their faith, and a suppression of important facts, 
which if the partial statement be made ought to appear. 

"The words, 'these indulgences were in the early age of 
the Church remissions of the penances' — a statement of 
what the Church did make them — followed so closely by 
the words ' but in process of time they were represented as 
actual pardons of guilt, and the purchaser of indulgence was 
said to be delivered from all his sins,' no person being named 
as the maker of these representations, seemed fairly to imply 
that the Church made or authorized them. This they indig- 
nantly deny. They state that an indulgence was not a par- 
don for sin, nor a permission to commit sin, but a remission 
of certain temporal punishments due to sins, after contrition, 
and after the sin has been forgiven ; and that the Church, in- 
stead of being responsible for Tetzel's course, disciplined him. 

"We do not understand that their position as to these 
facts can be successfully controverted. They claim, there- 
fore, that if the book were fair to their tenets, it would state 
them. This book is to be placed in the hands of children. 
A nice critic might indeed say that the words do not dis- 
tinctly allege that the Church represented these indulgences 
to be actual pardons of guilt, though he could not say that 
they do not imply that. But what impression would a child 
bear away? Even the teacher (Mr. Travis) told the pupils 
that an indulgence was a 'permission to commit sin.' He 
gave illustrations which he states were merely to elucidate the 
text. This shows his idea. A text-book, then, if the Catho- 
lic position is true as to the facts, must be free from this ob- 
scurity, and must state the important connecting circum- 
stances if it is not unfairly to prejudice the child's mind against 
the Catholic religion." 

Ex-Senator Winn very pertinently cites the Revised Stat- 
utes of Massachusetts (Chap. 44, Sect. 32), which forbids 
the purchasing for use in the public schools of books calcu- 
lated to favor the tenets of any particular sect of Christians. 
And, as he says, this prohibition, of course, includes book- 
calculated to disparage the tenets of any particular body 
of Christians. Swinton's " Outlines " does gravely disparage, 
by a partial, colored, and misleading statement of history, 
the tenets of the Catholic Church. 



128 

The Boston Post is another paper of critical ability and 
standing which, without at all adopting Catholic views, 
clearly discerns the line of justice and fairness in this con- 
troversy. Writing on Sept. 29, 1888, on the action of the 
Boston School Board, the Post says : 

"The committee found that the teacher in question had 
taught that an indulgence 'is a permission to commit sin,' 
and they found also that in a foot-note of the historical text- 
book used in the school it was stated that indulgences had 
been so ■ represented.' Here was an obvious wrong; the 
teacher had given an erroneous definition, and the foot-note 
upon which he based it was misleading. The bare statement 
that the thing was so 'represented,' without saying where or 
by whom, or whether correctly or not, is of course unjusti- 
fiable." 

Another Protestant authority of weight is the Christian 
Union, edited by the Rev. Dr. Lyman Abbott, a learned Con- 
gregationalist, who, with the Rev. T. J. Conant, revered by all 
Baptists as one of their foremost scholars, edited the " Dic- 
tionary of Religious Knowledge," a work used by tens of 
thousands of Protestant Sunday-school teachers. This is 
what the Christian Union of Jan. 10 says of Swinton's foot- 
note : 

"The statement embodied in the foot-note was such as to 
convey the impression that indulgence is ' permission to com- 
mit sin.' This impression is untrue. The Roman Catholic 
Church does not teach any doctrine involving any permission 
to commit sin, and any statement which gives, or appears to 
give such an impression may reasonably be objected to, not 
only by Catholics in interest of their faith, but by all men in 
interest of accuracy." 

And in the issue of .Tan. 24, the Christian Union dis- 
cusses the matter at greater length, and, after quoting the 
Swinton foot-note, delivers itself as follows : 

"The Roman Catholics were clearly right in their objec- 
tion to this statement. It is certainly misleading, if not 



129 



absolutely unhistorical. It is true that the Committee of One 
Hundred have issued a tract (No. 3) for the purpose of prov- 
ing the correctness of this statement, but the quotations 
which they have given utterly fail of their purpose. They 
do indeed show by Roman Catholic testimony that the 
doctrine of indulgences was abused by Tetzel, and that his 
abuse was subsequently disavowed and condemned by the 
Roman Catholic Church ; but not at all that indulgences were 
ever represented by the Church or its authority as actual 
pardons of guilt and the purchaser of indulgences as 
delivered from all his sins. We doubt whether it will be 
possible to find even any respectable Protestant authority for 
authorit for n ii thGre iS CertainI ^ no Ro » lan Catholic 

"If a school text-book had said that the doctrine of the 
Trinity was in the early age of the Church the doctrine of 
three persons m one God, but in process of time it was rep- 
resented as the worship of three Gods, all orthodox Trinita- 

doctrine of J t d T ■ T vT^ ind !^^ Ifc » true that the 
doctrine of the Trinity has sometimes lapsed into a doctrine 
of Tntheism, and it is true that the doctrine of indulgences 
has sometimes been represented as the actual pardon of 
guilt; but the Roman Catholic Church has as consistently 
antagonized the latter perversion as the Orthodox Church 
the former one ; and to put into the school-books, to be 
read by young children of the Roman Catholic faith such a 
statement, without the necessary qualifications, was to grVe 
just offence to those whose religious faith was impliedly if 
not expressly misrepresented. y 

h™l We d i°/, 10 - Pr °F? S ? t0 enter int0 the battle of the school- 
books and their publishers. We share the resolute purpose 
to maintain, at every hazard, our public-school systW in- 
tact, and to keep it free from every form of eeclesiasticl 
control, whether Roman Catholic or Protesta^ But for 
these very reasons we demand that we Protestants, who are 
in the majority, shall scrupulously exclude from text-book 
and lroiii_ teaching, every statement which may even seem 
to do injustice to the religious opinion of the Roman 
Catholic minority, or which shall tend to inflame their 
religious prejudices and passions. We write these words 
Partly m answer to several Boston correspondents who have 
wished us to tell them wherein the complaint of the Roman 
Catholics against the school-book was perfectly reasonable 



130 

and in what respect the statement of that school-hook was 
untrue." 

This ahle editorial completely disposes of your corre-r 
spondent's repeated contention that an attack on Swinton is 
an attack on the public schools. It very clearly draws the 
line between the two, and defends the public schools without 
defending Swinton. 

The Christian Union, as well as the other able Protestant 
journals and authorities I have quoted, proves, beyond doubt, 
that Swinton's book is an inaccurate and therefore an unfit 
work to be used in our public schools. 

Prof. Charles Kendall Adams, whom your correspondent 
calls " a genuine historical standard," has condensed many 
Catholic objections to Swinton's "Outlines" into a single 
sentence by his declaration, "It preaches the Protestant 
doctrine." That is all that needs to be said, or that it ought 
to be necessary to say, to convince any man, be he Protestant 
or Catholic, that this book of Swinton's is not fit to be used 
in non-sectarian public schools. Why should any text-book 
be retained that " preaches the Protestant doctrine," or any 
other sectarian doctrine? Does it not plainly show the bias 
of the School Committee that it persists in retaining a book 
which " preaches the Protestant doctrine " ? Is it not evi- 
dence enough of an intent to give an anti-Catholic coloring 
to our public-school instruction? 

In closing I may note once more that your correspondent 
has wandered far from the question in dispute to formulate 
other false charges against the Church in relation to the 
Inquisition, the St. Bartholomew massacre, and other mat- 
ters wholly unrelated to it. His statements on these matters 
are as far from the truth as those which he makes concern- 
ing the doctrine of indulgences, but I am not to be dragged 
into that new and foreign field of controversy. "When he 
has proved his first proposition, which was to substantiate 



131 

every word Swinton has written, by "a consensus of un- 
biased historians," it will be time enough to open a new dis- 
cussion as to the Inquisition, the St. Bartholomew massacre, 
or any other irrelevant topic. Meantime, your readers will 
see the necessity, if we are ever to reach a conclusion, of 
returning and keeping to the point which we set out to 
decide, namely, whether the Catholic Church, as Swinton 
implies, ever represented that an " indulgence was a pardon 
of guilt, and that the purchaser of indulgence was said to 
be free from all his sins." K. J. Johnson. 



LETTER OF THE REV. GEORGE W. COOKE. 

THE FACTS ABOUT SWINTON'S HISTORY. 
[From the Declham Standard, March 9, 1889.] 

XI. 

The Attitude of the Catholic Church towards the Public Schools. 

Very few Protestants wish to persecute or even to misrep- 
resent the Catholic Church. They are quite willing that 
Catholics should worship God in their own way, and read 
whatever version of the Bible they prefer. They will accord 
to Catholics perfect freedom for those acts of worship which 
to Protestants are most repugnant. It is when the Catholic 
Church arrays itself against the public schools, and seeks to 
overthrow our free institutions, that many Americans, as 
Americans, and not as Protestants, feel that it is time to use 
other methods than those of indifference. 

It was not a desire to defend Swinton's " Outlines of the 
World's History" which made so much stir in Boston when 
that book was cast out by the School Committee of that city. 
It was not Protestant bigotry which caused so many citizens 
of Boston to vote for a School Committee of another sort than 



132 

that which had ejected Swinton's History. There were 
Protestant fanatics like the Rev. Justin D. Fulton and Presi- 
dent , undoubtedly; but the great majority of people 

were not actuated by fanatical motives. The real fear in 
Boston was the overthrow of the public-school system by the 
Catholic Church. There are very good reasons for believing 
that the Catholic Church desires to put down the public 
schools, and that it is laboring in every way possible to 
accomplish that result. 

The attack on Swinton's book is but one of many ways 
taken to make the Catholic laity believe that they are not 
justly dealt with in the management of the public schools. 
It is part of a concerted attack on the schools ; an attack 
that condemns them for teaching morality ; that calls them 
godless, and that stabs them by asking for a division of the 
public money appropriated to school purposes. It is not 
purely a love for historic truth which is voiced in the con- 
demnation of Swinton. That condemnation is part of an 
effort to throw discredit on the public schools in every pos- 
sible way, to destroy their efficacy, and to prepare the way for 
the incoming of the parochial schools. I make these asser- 
tions because the evidence for them is overwhelming, and 
because they are justified by repeated acts and words on the 
part of the Catholic Church. What the Catholic Church de- 
sires, what it demands, has been well expressed by the Free- 
man's Journal, one of its leading organs in this country : * 

* The Catholic Church has no newspaper organ, leading or otherwise. 
Without discussing the opinions quoted by Mr. Cooke from Catholic 
journals and magazines and from Catholic writers generally, it is desirable 
here to state distinctly that Catholic doctrines and principles can be 
authoritatively defined and promulgated only by the supreme authority, — 
the Roman Pontifl' and the Councils of the Church. Private versions of 
them, whether given by individuals or newspapers, are not binding on the 
Catholic body. They are merely the theories of those individuals or news- 
papers, and have no weight whatever in so far as they disagree by excess 
or defect with the authoritative teaching of the Church. Catholics look 



133 

"Accepting things as they are, American Catholics pay 
taxes for the support of the system which lacks the quality 
most essential in education — Christian morality. We pay 
taxes under protest. In order to supply what the public- 
school system lacks, we support many schools of our own. 
These schools save the State an immense sum yearly, — how 
much it is easy to discover by reference to the statistics. 
We are opposed to the defects in the public-school system, 
not to the system itself, under present political circum- 
stances. We mean that godless schools, without Christ, 
without morality founded on his teachings, are impossible." 

Our public schools are godless, that is, they do not teach 
the dogmas of the Catholic Church. As they do not teach 
a dogmatic Christianity, they must be destroyed, and the 
Freeman's Journal tells us how : 

" We want justice. We want a fair per capita share of 
the school funds. We want to be on an equal footing with 
our fellow-citizens, who, if they have children, receive a 
return for the taxes they pay. Let our Protestant friends 
awaken to the danger with which godless schools threaten 
the American people, and join with us in insisting that the 
school is the church of the little ones, and that it should be 
sacred to Christ." 

This demand for a division of the school funds is not in 
itself so great an evil as is that doctrine on which it rests, 
that the Church only should teach the young. The Catholic 
Church says it is an outrage that the State should teach the 
young. It arrogates to itself the claim that it alone is fit to 
teach, and that it alone has the right and the authority to 
teach. It says it is a sacrilege, an evil, that education 
should be under the control of the State ; that is, that it 
should be secular in its character, and not religious. The 
attitude of the Catholic Church has been expressed by the 

to the most approved authors of canon law for the exposition and inter- 
pretation of the doctrine and principles of their Church, and doctrinal 
declarations from such sources alone have authority in the Church. — 
K. J. J. 



1M 

Pope, in his Encyclical Letter, in which that subject is dealt 
with : 

" XLV. The Catholic Church has a right to interfere in 
the discipline of the public schools, and in the arrangement 
of the studies of the public schools, and in the choice of the 
teachers for these schools." 

" XLVII. Public schools, open to all children for the 
education of the young, should be under the control of the 
Catholic Church, and should not be subject to the civil 
power, nor made to conform to the opinions of the age." * 

In conformity with this declaration of the Pope, we find 
the Tablet, a leading Catholic journal, using this language : 

"We hold education to be a function of the Church, not of 
the State ; and in our case we do not and will not accept the 
State as an educator." 

When a parochial school was opened in Jamaica Plain, in 
July, 1888, Father Conaty, of Worcester, said : 

" The State as educator of its citizens is a relic of bar- 
barism." 

The " Catholic Dictionary " of Addis and Arnold says on 
this subject : 

" The first and highest authority in all that regards educa- 
tion is the Church. With her sanction it should be com- 
menced, and under her superintendence it should be con- 
tinued." 

A leading Catholic magazine, the Catholic Review, said : 

"We deny, of course, as Catholics, the rights of the civil 
government to educate ; for education is a function of the 
spiritual society as much as preaching." 



Holding that the Church has the absolute right to educate, 
what will Catholics do? This is what the Catholic World 
proposed some time since : 

* The Pope has never used the language here attributed to him. (See 
page 172.)— R.J. J. 



135 

"The Catholic Church numbers one third of the American 
population, and if its membership shall increase for the next 
thirty years as it has for the thirty years past, in 1900 Rome will 
have a majority, and be bound to this country and keep it. 
There is ere long to be a State religion in this country, and 
that State religion is to be Roman Catholic. The Roman 
Catholic is to wield his vote for the purpose of secur- 
ing Catholic ascendancy in this country. All legislation 
must be governed by the will of God, unerringly indicated 
by the Pope. Education must be controlled by Catholic author- 
ities, and under education, the opinion of the individual 
and the utterances of the press are included. Many opin- 
ions are to be furnished by the secular arm under the au- 
thority of the Church, even to war and bloodshed." * 

If the Catholic Church does triumph, what will be its 
methods? Will it continue the public schools and grant 
general toleration ? The answer of the Catholic Review was 
rendered some years ago : 

" While a State has rights, she has them only in virtue 
and by permission of the superior authority, and that au- 
thority can only be expressed through the Church. Prot- 
estantism of every form has not, and never can have, any 
right where Catholicism has triumphed ; and, therefore, we 
lose the breath we expend in declaiming against bigotry and 
intolerance, and in favor of religious liberty or the right of 
any man to be of any religion as best pleases him." * 

It does not appear that all Catholics entertain senti- 
ments such as these. They do appear, however, to be the 
sentiments of the Pope, the bishops, and the priests generally. 
Many of the laity do not accept them, and it is largely 
because they do not accept them that a more vigorous effort is 
now being made to build up the parochial schools. Why it is 
desirable to build them up has been expressed by a Catholic, 
Thomas J. Jenkins, in a pamphlet called " Christian v. God- 
less Schools." He says : 

* Neither the Catholic World nor the Catholic Beview ever published the 
remarks above attributed to them. (See pages 175 and 176.) 



136 

"Past experience has made it evident that Catholic youth, 
by the frequentation of the public schools, are, almost with- 
out exception, exposed to a great danger, not only of cor- 
ruption of morals, but also of losing faith itself." 

In the public schools Catholic youth come to think for 
themselves ; they refuse to submit to the narrow methods of 
the Church or they cease to be Catholics. Therefore Catho- 
lic children must be taken out of the public schools and 
sent to the parochial schools, where they can be taught out of 
books we have already learned to understand. Books and 
methods which close the mind to everything not favorable to 
the Church, make it possible to retain most of the youth in 
the Church. In the words of Thomas J. Jenkins the Church 
says: "The public schools are infidel and godless, and 
must therefore be avoided." The next step is to cast out 
those who will not submit. The same writer expresses the 
spirit and purpose of the Church in these words : 

"The line is drawn, and pastors cry to their flocks : 'Are 
you Catholics? Come over to us and send your children 
to Catholic schools. Are you not Catholics? Then go away 
about your business ; we want no such black, scabby sheep 
to infest the flock of Christ.' " 

The attitude of the Catholic Church in regard to the public 
schools was distinctly expressed in the Pope's Encyclical 
Letter, read in all the Catholic churches of New York City 
on Sunday, Feb. 17. In that letter the Pope said : — 

" There is no ecclesiastical authority left in them ; and 
during the years when it is most fitting for tender minds to 
be carefully trained in Christian virtue, the precepts of re- 
ligion are for the most part unheard." 

But can the Catholic Church compel its members to send 
their children to the parochial schools ? it is asked. The an- 
swer may be found in a book called " A Full Catechism of 
the Catholic Religion " : 



137 

" Every one is obliged, under pain of eternal damnation, 
to become a member of the Catholic Church, to believe her 
doctrine, to use her means of grace, and to submit to her 
authority." 

While the Catholic remains a Catholic, that is, while he 
accepts the infallible authority of the Church, he must be- 
lieve that his salvation, his eternal happiness, depends on 
his submission to its authority. If he refuses to send his 
children to the parochial schools, the means of salvation are 
withdrawn from him. This is not a mere Protestant inter- 
pretation of what Catholics believe and teach ; but more 
than once this threat has been held over the heads of those 
who offered disobedience. During the year 1888, in Chicago, 
there appeared in the Church Calendar, this admonition : 

"a warning to parents. 

" If you send your children to the public school they will 
not be prepared for their First Communion. Henceforth, 
there will be no special First Communion class for children 
that go to the public schools. If you want your children to 
make their First Communion, you must send them to the 
Catholic school, where the instruction is given. It will not 
do to send them for a month or two at Easter time, but they 
must be two years at the Catholic school before they will be 
admitted to the First Communion class. This is according 
to the decree of the diocese, and it will be carried out." 

What does this mean ? Does it not mean that those chil- 
dren sent to the public schools cannot become Catholics, and 
that therefore they cannot be saved? It also meaus, does it 
not? that the chief object of the parochial school is to pre- 
pare children for the communion and for membership in the 
Church. To confirm this conclusion, we have the dictum of 
Cardinal Antonelli : 

"It is better that children grow up in ignorance, than that 
they should be educated in such a system of schools as the 
State of Massachusetts supports. The essential part of edu- 



138 

cation is the catechism ; and while arithmetic and geography 
and other similar studies may be useful, they are not essen- 
tial." * 

The conclusion has been forced upon me, that the opinions 
which I have here quoted make a distinct issue between the 
public schools and the Catholic Church. The whole drift of 
the discussion of the last year, which has developed that antag- 
onism, has also forced upon me the conclusion that Swinton's 
" Outlines of History " is a mere makeshift, and that the real 
point of attack is the public schools themselves. This conclu- 
sion is confirmed by the attitude of the Council held a year or 
two since in Baltimore, the utterances of priests and journals, 
and by the efforts made to discredit the public-school system. 
For one, I think it time to take up the gauntlet thus thrown 
down, and to defend the public schools with uncompromising 
energy. f In attacking the public schools the Catholic Church 
attacks all which they produce, liberty, free thought, a free 



* This is an improbable and wholly unverified story, resting upon the 
mere say-so of an anti-Catholic writer. (See page 174.) — R. J. J. 

t Such talk as this has lately been very fittingly characterized by the 
Boston Herald as "Protestant buncombe." Don Quixote tilting at his 
windmills was not a quainter figure than Mr. Cooke's " taking up the 
gauntlet" and " defending the public schools " with his "uncompromis- 
ing energy." A little uncompromising common-sense would enable him 
to see that the Catholic Church's assault on the public schools is purely 
a figment of his overheated imagination. The Catholic Church attacks 
no schools, whether public or private; she simply declares that our pub- 
lic schools as at present managed are unfit for the education of Cath- 
olic children ; she only seeks Catholic education for Catholic children ; she 
makes no attack upon any of our institutions, and expects that non-Cath- 
olic parents will educate their own children according to their own convic- 
tions. If Mr. Cooke really desires to defend and strengthen the public 
schools, he will do well to abandon abuse, avoid clap-trap about " taking 
up gauntlets," cease arraying himself in feathers and war-paint against the 
Catholic Church, and devote his " uncompromising energy " to promoting a 
policy of fairness and justice, not only with regard to text-books, but in 
everything else that pertains to the conduct of our common schools, and 
seeks to make them acceptable to parents of all religious denominations. 



139 

press, and equal rights. The Pope says, in his Encyclical 
Letter, already quoted : * 

" I anathematize all who maintain the liberty of the press 
and all advocates of liberty of speech, which is the liberty of 
perdition." 

Do we wish to have this assumed authority made actual 
in this country ? The only way to prevent it is to maintain 
the public schools with vigor and in a tolerant spirit. 

George W. Cooke. 



ERKORS CONCERNING INDULGENCES. 

THE REV. R. J. JOHNSON EXPLAINS AND REFUTES SEVERAL 
POPULAR ERRORS CONCERNING THEM. 

[From the Dedham Standard, March 23, 1889.] 
I had hoped to have been able by this time to say " Finis " 
to the discussion concerning Swinton's text-book ; but some 
of the statements of your correspondent, the Eev. Geo. W. 
Cooke, oblige me to address the public again through your 
columns, because I feel that some of the grosser misrepre- 
sentations of Catholic faith and practice which he has intro- 

* This is simply the regulation no-Popery rant and cant. Seriously to 
answer these wild and incoherent railings against the Catholic Church, as 
the assailant of "liberty, free thought, a free press, and equal rights," is 
beneath the dignity of rational discussion. These charges are senseless 
in themselves, and they have no evidence to support them. The passage 
alleged to be quoted by Mr. Cooke from an Encyclical of the Pope was 
never written or published by any Pope. Mr. Cooke's railings against 
the Catholic Church, and the quotation with which he supports them, are 
equally untrue. His airy assertion that the complaint of Swinton's " Out- 
lines " is a mere makeshift, and that the real point of attack is the public 
schools themselves, has no facts to sustain it, and reputable Protestant 
journals have repudiated it. The Christian Union well disposes of it by 
saying, speaking of the action of the Boston School Committee in exclud- 
ing the book : " When a perfectly reasonable complaint was made against 
the untrue statement of the text-book on the subject of indulgences, Prot- 
estant prejudice was ready to be fired. Some no-Popery apostles were 
ready to fire it ! " 



140 

duced in his letters — though without relevancy to the origi- 
nal issue between us — ought not to go unchallenged. 

Your correspondent prefaced his letter of Jan. 19 last by a 
quite uncalled-for protestation of his loyalty and devotion to 
the public schools. In his opinion, "the attack upon Swin- 
ton's book is simply a disguised attack upon the public school 
and in the interest of the parochial school." I am not in the 
least tempted to enter the broad field of irrelevant contro- 
versy to which this assertion invites me. In this discussion 
the public schools are not the object of attack by any one. 
But there is a strange incongruity in the champions of 
Swinton's text-book undertaking to pose as the special and 
exclusive defenders of the public schools. If anybody can 
be fairly charged with pursuing a course calculated to weaken 
and injure the public school, these champions are the very 
people against whom such an accusation may with some show 
of reason be made. It requires no great insight to see that 
it does not and cannot tend to strengthen the general con- 
fidence in our common schools to insist upon placing in them 
text-books which give just and grave offence to the religious 
convictions of the parents of a full half of the children who 
attend them. 

If, indeed, there existed in any quarter a desire to " under- 
mine the public schools,'" as the phrase goes, the persistent 
efforts of those special "friends of the public schools" to 
force perverted and distorted history, written with a manifest 
anti-Catholic bias, into the reluctant hands of Catholic chil- 
dren, need not be deprecated or opposed. If he will reflect 
on this view of the case, your correspondent will perceive 
that he is in danger of being suspected by some over-zealous 
Protestant of being " a Jesuit in disguise." Giving him 
credit, however, for sincerity in protesting his devotion to 
the public schools, I will suggest to him that the very best 
way he can show it is by helping to exclude from them all 



141 

text-books that are untruthful, unfair, and offensive to a 
large body of parents. The contrary course will surely 
imperil the public schools. Prof. Charles Kendall Adams 
pertinently remarks that "disaster must follow such a policy, 
simply for the reason that if there is any one thing to 
which a man will not submit it is to have his children taught 
religious doctrines which he believes to be at once false and 
pernicious." 

It is impossible for me to follow your correspondent in all 
his gyrations. He has sought in his letters, however, to 
sustain his position — that every word contained in Swinton's 
History is substantiated by a consensus of unbiased histo- 
rians — by citing several historians. It must be remembered 
that of the Reformation, its causes and its results, there 
always have been, are now, and in the nature of things 
always must be, two views — the Catholic view and the 
Protestant view ; and if Protestants will not accept the Cath- 
olic view of the Reformation, neither can they expect to force 
their view of it upon Catholics. 

Prof. Charles Kendall Adams, whom your correspondent 
has placed at the head of Protestant historical authorities, 
puts this point very incisively when, after remarking that 
Swinton's "Outlines" "preaches the Protestant doctrine," 
and does not preach the Catholic doctrine, he says : 

" To any one who has received his knowledge of the 
Reformation solely from that combination of careless schol- 
arship and slovenly enthusiasm known as D'Aubigne's 'His- 
tory of the Reformation,' this statement may seem hardly 
correct ; but every one who has looked more carefully into 
the history of this period knows that there is a side of the 
question of altogether another color." 

Your correspondent has undertaken to expound the doc- 
trine of indulgences as taught by the Catholic Church, but 
every Catholic will recognize this exposition as a caricature of 



142 

the real teaching of his Church. In his efforts to explain indul- 
gences, your correspondent cites, it is true, some ver}' good 
authorities on the subject, but it is evident that in quoting 
them he has utterly failed to grasp their meaning. It is well 
to impart useful information, but it is at least prudent, if 
not just, to obtain it before endeavoring to communicate it. 
The only Catholic author he cites, who has written ex- 
pressly on the subject, is Maurel, whom he has completely 
misunderstood, and whose writings he has quoted only in a 
mutilated form, as I showed in a previous letter. The rest 
of what he says on indulgences is taken mostly from those 
anti-Catholic pamphlets which are issued by the Committee 
of One Hundred and other " no-Popery " literature of the 
day. Following these misleading lights, he imputes to the 
Catholic Church what she herself most emphatically con- 
demns. It is indeed inevitable that when a man writes on a 
matter of which he knows nothing, he should say some 
very absurd things. This has been exactly the misfortune 
of your correspondent. For example, along with many 
other false statements, he makes one as follows : 

" It is to be remembered with regard to indulgences that 
they are wholly under the control of the priesthood. How- 
ever benevolently used, they are a powerful lever for gain- 
ing money. The laymen must accept the priest's terms, and 
the priest is careful to commend the wonderful efficacy of 
the indulgence." 

In this one short paragraph there are three distinct 
errors : 

1. Indulgences are not under the control of the priest- 
hood. 

2. They are not a powerful lever for gaining money. 

3. The laymen must not accept the priest's terms. 
Your correspondent violates the decencies of discussion 

when he insults his fellow-citizens with such a gross misrep- 



143 

reservation of their religious belief and practices as is con- 
tained in this paragraph. 

1. Catholic theology teaches that a priest has no power, 
unless by virtue of a special faculty, to impart to any one 
the benefit of an indulgence. 

2. Indulgences are not a powerful lever for gaining 
money. A priest, or any one else, is forbidden under the 
severest penalties from receiving even so much as one cent 
for an indulgence, I will borrow the excellent phraseolooy 
of a learned writer, and say that it is not taught, never was 
taught, is not believed, never was believed, and never can 
be believed by any Catholic that indulgences can be bouo-ht 
or sold or be in any sense an article of traffic. No money 
can purchase an indulgence, for an indulgence can be 
obtained only by faith, repentance, confession, absolution, 
prayers, alms-deeds, and other good works. Every Catho- 
lic knows that to offer money for it would argue a disposition 
on his part that would make it impossible, while he retained 
that disposition, for him to gain an indulgence. No one can 
gain an indulgence while in sin, and it follows that indul- 
gences are not at any price profitable things to purchase ; for 
the .mere attempt to purchase one is simony, which is of 
itself a grave sin, and would render the would-be purchaser 
unfit to receive an indulgence. He who should offer money 
to pay for an indulgence would receive for answer, " Thy 
money perish with thee." This point is clear and certain, 
that the mete attempt to buy or sell an indulgence would 
render it null and void. The priest who would attempt to 
sell an indulgence would be guilty of a great sin, and would 
expose himself to the severest penalties which the Church of 
which he is a minister could infiicL upon him. 

But in order to gain some indulgences, you say, one has to 
give alms. To whom? very pertinently asks the author of 
"Popular Errors concerning Politics and Religion." Do the 



144 

alms go to Rome or to the priests or to the benefit in any way 
of those by whom they are granted ? No. The alms are given 
to the poor ; they go to relieve actual distress, or to some 
charitable or religious object. Why must these alms be 
given in order to gain some indulgences? Because the 
Church teaches that an indulgence is granted only on the 
performance of some good work, whether it be prayer, or 
mortification, or alms. 

But perhaps it may be said that it was not so in Luther's 
time. Yes, it was. In all times the Church has had the 
greatest horror of the sale of holy things. She has issued 
decrees, either by her Councils, or through the mouths of 
her Popes, which ordained that those who commit simony 
(so called from Simon Magus) shall be treated as heretics. 
This was done long before Luther was born. We may take 
as examples the Council of Constance, and the Council of 
Lyons. Numerous Pontiffs also prohibited such abuses 
under pain of the severest punishments. What more could 
the Church do to prevent such abuses from being committed? 

3. The averment of your correspondent that the Catholic 
layman must accept the priest's terms as to indulgences, or 
any other Catholic doctrines, has no basis whatever in fact, 
and is a typical expression of a common misconception on 
the part of Protestants as to the relations of the Catholic laity 
to the Catholic priesthood. Protestants are constantly dis- 
closing their belief that the Catholic laity are deprived of all 
freedom, and are mere slaves to their priests and the Pope. 
Nothing, says an eminent Catholic writer, is further from 
the truth ; priests are the ministers of the law to Catholics, 
but not the law itself. Catholic faith and morals are not pri- 
vate or arbitrary things. They are catholic, public, and 
taught openly to all the faithful. They are all contained in 
the Catholic catechism, and there can be no departure from 
them, nothing varied in them, nothing added to them, nothing 



145 

taken from them. These doctrines may not be equally well 
known by all the faithful, but the Church has always equally 
possessed and known them, and they have always and every- 
where been taught to her children, and in their substance 
known and believed by them all. Having been so known 
and believed, they have formed alike in the church teaching 
and in the church believing, the law of the Catholic con- 
science, to which the pastors are as subject as their flocks, 
and which teachers no more than believers can alter. Cath- 
olics therefore are not compelled to accept the priest's terms 
in regard to indulgences, or any other doctrine of the Catholic 
Church, for them there is no slavery to persons, whatever 
their rank or dignity — whether Pope, bishop, or priest. 

Nearly all the Protestant historians quoted by your corre- 
spondent on indulgences condemn what the Catholic Church 
herself condemned — the abuse of indulgences. Only two of 
them, Robertson and Motley, seem to give any color to the 
charge that the Church herself authorized or sanctioned such 
abuses. As far as any of these Protestant historians have 
avoided the slanders of the Catholic Church retailed by 
former writers, Catholics yield them due respect, without, of 
course, being bound to accept either their historical judg- 
ments or their doctrinal views. But the reader will doubt- 
less remember that your correspondent at the outset of this 
discussion made the pompous declaration that he would sub- 
stantiate every word contained in Swinton's History by a 
" consensus of unbiased historians." 

On what principle does he include in his list of " unbiased 
historians " the names of Robertson and Motley ? 

As to Robertson's * " unbiased " writing, he has been con- 
victed by that candid Protestant authority, Dr. Maitland, 
of misrepresentations of the Catholic Church in almost all that 
he has written concerning her and her teaching. Your cor- 

* See foot-note, page 78. 



146 

respondent quotes from Robertson the form of absolution sold 
by Tetzel. An eminent divine has said, " Verify your refer- 
ences." Had your correspondent followed this advice and 
consulted the original of this document, he would have found 
that he has not quoted it as it is, but only as it has been 
mutilated. i In the original this document is entitled : "Form 
of Absolution that has been preceded by confession." He 
has overlooked the words " prasmissa confessione," which 
appear in the heading of the " Forma," and which mean that 
the absolution must be preceded by a good confession. 

The alleged form of absolution quoted by your corre- 
spondent is manifestly a mutilated and distorted version of the 
original document. Besides, as Dr. Brownson says : 

" Absolution and indulgence are very different things. An 
indulgence affects only a certain temporal punishment that 
remains to be expiated after the absolution is given, or the 
external guilt is pardoned ; it is rather a commutation than a 
remission of even that temporal punishment which, if not 
commuted or borne here, must be expiated hereafter in pur- 
gatory. There is in fact no form of indulgence ; there are 
conditions of gaining an indulgence, but there is no certifi- 
cate given to the effect that we have obtained it. If we have 
sincerely complied with the conditions prescribed by the 
Pope we gain it; but whether or not we have gained it, 
neither we nor the Church can know in this life without a 
special revelation." 

Again, your correspondent quotes from the historian Mot- 
ley. That scholarly and polished writer has many charming 
qualities, but impartiality and fairness towards the Catholic 
Church are not among them. His bias against the Catholic 
Church is so notorious that Archbishop Spaulding said of him : 

" Motley is a partisan of the most decided character ; he 
writes, it would seem, more to sustain a favorite thesis than 
to vindicate the truth of history. His readers have very 
little opportunity to see the other side, though every one 
knows that most historical questions have two aspects, which 
the professed historian should give, or at least refer to." 



147 

On this point your correspondent should have consulted 
his favorite historian, Prof. Charles Kendall Adams, whom 
he describes as " the highest historical authority we have in 
this country," and in another as standing " at the head of 
the new school of historians in this country." (See his let- 
ter of Dec. 22 last.) Prof. Adams writes of Motley's " Rise 
of the Dutch Republic" as follows : 

"The judicious reader labors under the impression that 
there is another story to be told. The author's aversions are 
so strong, and his predilections are so extreme, that they seem 
often to have taken absolute possession of his judgment. 
. . . Throughout the history William of Orange is Motley's 
idol and client. In his behalf he has certainly made a mag- 
nificent plea ; but it is a plea and not a decision." 

An ample reply to the charge in your correspondent's 
quotation from Motley that the Catholic Church sold pardons 
of sins for money, is the emphatic statement made by Prof. 
Fisher, of Yale — a church historian of the first standing and 
one whose high rank among Protestant scholars is not open 
to dispute — and which is editorially quoted in the Boston 
Advertiser of,May 12, 1888. 

"To say," says Prof. Fisher, " that the Catholic Church ever 
taught that permission to commit sin can be bought for 
money is an atrocious slander." 

All such railing accusations against the Catholic Church 
may be set down as "campaign lies" which even Luther 
scorned to make use of. 

But it would appear from another part of his letter of Jan. 
26, that your correspondent even is not so entirely confident 
of Swinton's accuracy and fairness as he was when he set out 
on his voyage of historical discovery. After quoting the 
Rev. A. Maurel's definition of an indulgence as that of the 
standard Catholic authority, he remarks chat : 

" As an indulgence is thus defined, it would appear that 



148 

Swinton misconceived its nature, if his statement that it was 
represented as an actual pardon of guilt applied to the direct 
teaching of the Church. As we have already seen, the 
Church never formulated its practice in regard to indul- 
gences into positive doctrine ; and while Swinton states what 
the Church actually did, his assertion is not in harmony with 
its teachings." 

By what rule of reasoning does your correspondent pre- 
sume, in the very same sentence in which he thus admits the 
Catholic objection to be well grounded, to say that " Swin- 
ton states what the Church actually did " ? In the very next 
sentence he adds that " Swinton undertakes in his foot-note 
to describe only what was performed by many Catholics." 
Surely he cannot fail to perceive the difference between 
" what the Church actually did " or authorized as a Church, 
and " what was performed by many Catholics " only, without 
her authority and against her teachings. And this, I repeat, 
is the vital part of the whole discussion. Swinton's foot- 
note leaves it to be understood that the Church herself 
authoritatively sanctioned the selling of indulgences as 
"actual pardons of guilt," which your correspondent now 
concedes the Church did not do. He now insists that Swin- 
ton's foot-note only bases his representations of indulgence 
as "actual pardons of guilt "on "what was performed by 
many Catholics." But the whole trouble with the foot-note 
is that it does not make this distinction at all, but conveys 
the contrary inference against the Catholic Church. 

Now, is it not clear, by your correspondent's own admis- 
sion, that Swinton's statements are false? If, as he here 
distinctly says, Swinton's " assertion is not in harmony with 
its (the Catholic Church's) teaching," what possible excuse 
can he have for the assertion that every word of Swinton is 
substantiated by " a consensus of unbiased historians " ? The 
whole point for which I contend is distinctly yielded by him 
in this admission that Swinton's assertion is not in harmony 



149 

with Catholic teaching. That is exactly the objection to his 
assertion, and that is one of the chief objections to his book 
— that it asserts Catholic teaching to be what it is not now, 
was not in Luther's time, never was at any past time, and 
never will be at any time to come. Every scholar, Protes- 
tant or Catholic, knows it to be the fact that the Catholic 
Church has never taught what Swinton represents her as 
teaching, and every man who is not a scholar can know it by 
consulting the standard encyclopedias edited by Protestants 
of every denomination. Even your correspondent him- 
self now concedes in so many words that Swinton's "asser- 
tion is not in harmony with its (the Church's) teaching." 
Why, then, does he prolong his tirade against the Catholic 
Church, dragging in all manner of side questions, and rais- 
ing clouds of controversial dust, all to defend a position 
which, by this concession, he has abandoned so completely 
that it is no longer defensible? He says, and truly, that 
Swinton's statement is not in harmony with Catholic teach- 
ing. Clearly, then, it distorts and falsities Catholic teaching, 
and clearly it is unfair and unjust to Catholics to distort and 
falsify the teaching of their Church to their children, in 
schools that are professedly non-sectarian. That is all that 
I have contended for from the first. 

Everything your correspondent has written outside of this 
one vital point is irrelevant ; it simply does not bear upon 
the matter in dispute. 

Towards the close of the same letter your correspondent, 
speaking of the abuse of indulgences, says : 

"That the Church approved of what is here described, I 
do not wish to assert ; but undeniably these things were 
done in the name of the Church." 

This is precisely the offensive feature of the foot-note in the 
"Outlines," that it fastens upon the Church, by implication, 
the responsibility for things that " were done in the name ot 



150 

the Church," and were condemned by her. But where is the 
institution, or where is the individual, who in common fair- 
ness can be held accountable for all the things that may be 
dene in its or his name? The man who forges your name to 
a note gets? it cashed in your name. The rascal who per- 
sonates you at the ballot box votes in your .name. The 
impostor who collects money from charitable persons by 
presenting bogus letters from highly respectable citizens 
commits his frauds in their names. Shall they be, therefore, 
set down as sanctioning the swindle ? To put a case more 
nearly parallel in church history, witches were at one time 
hanged in Massachusetts in the name of religion ; Quakers 
were at one time scourged in the same name. Suppose, then, 
a foot-note in a school text-book of history that should leave 
it to be inferred by the pupils that the hanging of witches 
and the whipping of Quakers were distinctly authorized and 
inculcated by the teaching of the Protestant Church at that 
time. Would that be fair or truthful ? Would not Protes- 
tants demur to a foot-note of that kind ? 

Your correspondent closes his letter of Jan. 26 with an 
extremely positive declaration as to the causes of the Refor- 
mation. "The Reformation," he asserts, "is without an 
explanation, if the purchaser of indulgences was not said to 
be delivered from all sins." "It was," he adds, with equal 
positiveness, " the universal traffic in indulgences, the open 
and shameful sale of them as covering crime, which aroused 
the reformers everywhere, and caused the division of the 
Church." That history cannot be gainsaid is your corre- 
spondent's final declaration. True enough, " history cannot 
be gainsaid " ; but your correspondent's studies have scarcely 
qualified him, as yet, to be a judge of what history says. 
Prof. Fisher, acknowledged as a Protestant authority of 
the first rank, says (page 2, " Reformation ") : 

" Notwithstanding that three centuries have since elapsed, 



151 

the real origin and significance of the Reformation remain a 
subject of controversy." 

Dr. Schaff (page 155, " History of the Christian Church ") 
says : 

" The Reformation would have come to pass sooner or 
later, if no Tetzel had ever lived, and it actually did break 
out in different countries without any connection with the 
trade in indulgences, except in German Switzerland, where 
Bernhardin Samson acted the part of Tetzel, but after Zwin- 
gli had already begun his Reformation." 

It is evident, therefore, that Dr. Schaff, as well as Prof. 
Fisher, reads history on this point in quite a different 
way from your correspondent. Who shall decide when 
doctors disagree? Are not Prof. Fisher and Dr. Schaff 
as likely to be right as to the causes of the Reformation as 
your correspondent? For my part, I must think so. 

Still I agree that " history cannot be gainsaid " ; certainly 
not. I wish your correspondent would not try to gainsay 
it, as he does when he asserts that every word contained in 
Swinton's History is substantiated by a " consensus of un- 
biased historians." R. J. Johnson. 



TRAVELLERS' TALES. 

HOW SCANDALOUS STORIES ABOUT THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND 
CLERGY ARE SENT FROM EUROPEAN COUNTRIES. 

[From the Dedham Standard, March 30, 1889.] 

In your issue of Feb. 2, your correspondent, the Rev. 
George W. Cooke, continues his labored effort to show that 
Swinton's " Outlines of History " gives a true and fair repre- 
sentation of the Catholic doctrine of indulgences. Not only 
does he insist that the teaching; of the Catholic Church made 



152 

he pardon of sins a matter of sale and traffic in the time of 
Luther, — which I have already shown to be untrue, by the 
testimony of Protestant scholars of the first rank, — but he at- 
tempts to prove that even to this day the sale of indulgences is 
still carried on. In support of this new slander of the Catho- 
lic Church and her teaching your correspondent quotes a letter 
written from Bologna, Italy, to the Christian Register, in 
which the writer (a lady) asserts that she had seen " some- 
thing that proved an eyesore and an offence to my Protestant 
soul " — on the front of the Catholic Church at Bologna — " the 
announcement that plenary indulgences were sold within." 

In quoting this Italian letter your correspondent naively 
remarks that "if a correspondent of the Christian Register 
can be trusted," then these scandalous things are still going 
on at Bologna. Your correspondent has a short memory, or 
he would not make any "if" in this case ; he would know 
positively that the Christian Register cannot be trusted, 
because he himself said so in a letter written to the Standard 
no longer ago than Dec. 22, 1888. On that date your corre- 
spondent annihilated the Christian Register along with the 
Boston Beacon, in the following crushing manner : 

"Mr. Johnson quotes the opinion of the Beacon and the 
Christian Register with reference to the worth of Swinton's 
book ; but such authorities are of no importance in regard to 
such a question as this. They are defending their own posi- 
tion, and care less for truth than to make out their own 
case." 

Having thus completely destroyed the character of the 
Christian Register, even in its editorial columns, no longer 
ago than last December, it is very amusing but not at all 
convincing to find your correspondent quoting from the mere 
news columns of the same paper, in February, to sustain a 
grosser and a more direct and explicit charge against the 
Catholic Church than even Swinton makes. 



153 

The Christian Register's correspondent never saw what 
she described as having seen on the front of the church at 
Bologna ; not that I care to charge her with having written 
what she knew to be untrue, but certainly she wrote, to take 
a charitable view, her hastily and loosely formed impressions 
of what she saw, and added to it a considerable amount of 
hearsay which she eagerly accepted as true. It is quite cer- 
tain that she did not see on the front of the old church at 
Bologna, or of any Catholic Church in the world, "boldly 
placarded for all men to read . . . the announcement that 
plenary indulgences were sold within." What she did see, 
no doubt, was the announcement of the indulgence proclaimed 
by Pope Leo XIII. on the occasion of the Golden Jubilee of 
his ordination. That indulgence was proclaimed throughout 
the world, and was published, not only in Bologna, but in 
Boston, and also right here in Dedham. I have a copy of 
this document, and I send it with this letter to the Standard, 
hoping that space may be found to publish it, so that all your 
readers may read it for themselves and see just what it says. 
There is not one word in it about selling indulgences or any 
mention of money payment for them. Yet on a misunder- 
standing of this document the Christian Register's corre- 
spondent sends back from Italy to Boston a wretched hotch- 
potch of hearsay to the eifect that indulgences are being sold 
and that " full and free pardon for major sins " is being 
" granted for half a crown " in Bologna, while " venial offences 
are condoned for eighteen pence English." Thereupon your 
correspondent eagerly seizes upon this farrago of nonsense 
and quotes it as if it were " confirmation strong as holy writ " 
of his contention that the Church not only was in Luther's 
day, as Swinton asserts, but is still, engaged in selling par- 
dons for guilt. 

The reader will note that the Christian Register's corre- 
spondent, after retailing these scandalous stories of pardons 



154 

sold for money, frankly admits that thej' - are all hearsay, and 
that she has no actual knowledge of them whatever. She 
says : " At least this was what I was told ; and I have little 
reason to doubt it." If this mere hearsay "gave a shock to 
[her] my Protestant soul," should not the possibility that, 
by repeating it, she might be guilty of bearing false witness 
against her neighbor, have shocked her Protestant soul still 
more severely ? Observe the unconscious disclosure of pre- 
conceived opinion and ingrained prejudice which this con- 
fession makes. In effect this Protestant lady travelling 
abroad says: "While in Bologna I heard a great many 
shameful stories about the Catholic Church. I don't know 
that they are true, but this is what I was told, and I have 
little reason to doubt it." In other words, she went to Italy 
prepared to hear just such things ; and, therefore, as soon as 
she heard them she believed them to be true. She proves 
herself to be one of those travellers who form their judg- 
ments on the idle rumors and floating gossip that reach their 
ears, and who look not with their eyes but with their 
prejudices. 

This habit of mind is in no way peculiar to the correspond- 
ent of the Christian Register ; it is quite common among 
Protestants who travel in Europe, and who, though respect- 
able, intelligent, and well-informed persons on general mat- 
ters and things, cannot observe Catholic ceremonies and 
customs without carrying away the strangest misconceptions 
of their meaning, and the most erroneous impressions of 
their character. 

I have conversed with several persons who have visited 
Bologna and the church of San Petronio within the past few 
years, and they all assure me that they neither saw nor 
heard of any sales of indulgences or pardons such as the 
Christian Register's correspondent describes — admittedly on 
hearsay. Their positive denial of such occurrences is noth- 



155 

ing more or less than I had felt assured of, for in my own 
mind I was perfectly satisfied that clergymen, upon whom 
this strange and malignant charge is attempted to be fast- 
ened, would not, for -they could not, be guilty of an act 
which their religion not only forbids, but the perpetration of 
which would surely expose them, not only to the just indig- 
nation and abhorrence of all Catholics, but also to the heavi- 
est penalties which that Church of which they are ministers 
could inflict upon them. 

Protestant visitors to Catholic countries necessarily record 
their observations under the disadvantage of being unin- 
formed as to Catholic belief and practices which they 
attempt to state and describe. They fall, to begin with, 
into the error of assuming that, because they have good 
general intelligence and yet cannot understand Catholic 
faith and practice, which they have never sought to learn, 
therefore those who have been brought up in the Catholic 
faith and practice from their very infancy are as ignorant 
about them as they are themselves. The story is told of 
two English ladies who, at great expense of time and trouble, 
learned the language of France and then went to that country 
to finish their education. Landing at Havre, one of these 
ladies remarked to the other, with amazement, that the very 
fishwomen and porters were speaking French quite fluently. 
It had not occurred to her that she was now in France, and 
that these people had used and understood the French language 
from their cradle. It is related of a very wise Englishman 
that he once crossed over to France and stayed there less than 
a week, and that when he got home he declared that he had 
always disliked the French, but now that he had seen them 
and knew just what they were, his antipathy was confirmed. 
He had, he said, found them so ignorant and obstinate that 
they could not be persuaded to call things by their right 
names ; it was like being at Babel ; if you asked for a shovel 



156 

they brought you a horse ; they called a hat a " chopper." 
and gave the nickname of "ding-dong" to turkeys. It is on 
much the same arbitrary principles that Protestants of gen- 
eral intelligence and liberality of thought often pass judgment 
on Catholic practices, of the grounds whereof they have no 
knowledge. It is much to be desired that our Protestant 
friends might more generally assume that our common 
Creator has given to Catholics the same share of understand- 
ing as he has given to themselves ; that they would remember 
that the Catholic Church has gathered within its membership 
a fair proportion of the men of genius, learning, and piety, 
as well as of men of common-sense. If they would do this 
they would not be heard so often passing supercilious de- 
cisions against Catholic doctrines which they have never 
examined, and against Catholic practices which, in view of 
their early education, training, and environment, we know 
it is impossible that they should understand. A little more 
reading of Catholic authors would help greatly in clearing 
away the misconceptions which are continually being formed 
and expressed by otherwise intelligent Protestants on the 
subject of the Catholic Church and its teachings. We are 
all familiar with that type of traveller who, for the purpose 
of making Englishmen laugh and filling his own purse, runs 
rapidly over this great country with a note and sketch book, 
and returns at a month's end to turn our alleged peculiarities 
into ridicule, while he gives no account whatever of those 
substantial things which actually make up our national life 
and character. Imagine a history of the United States com- 
piled exclusively from the records of our criminal courts ; 
these courts are, no doubt, a part of American life, but they 
do not afford a fair basis to judge the whole life of the nation 
by. Conceive of a foreigner — and there have actually been 
suc h — who made up his estimate of the political condition 
of America from the statements of our own partisan political 



157 

writers, quoting them liberally from our daily journals as 
his authorities. Would the portrait of American political 
life thus drawn be accepted as anything more than a villa- 
nous caricature? Assuredly not. Yet it is notorious that 
the history of the Catholic Church is read by Protestants of 
your correspondent's type, from the pages of authors who 
have written history in exactly that spirit and by precisely 
such methods. 

The manner in which the average tourist in Europe ac- 
quires his notions of Italy, and of Catholic teaching, is well 
illustrated by Bishop England's experiences on his journey 
to Rome. He travelled in secular dress, so that he was not 
readily recognized as a priest. But he was easily known to 
be a foreigner, and was set down by the Italians whom he 
met on his journey as being English. In conversation with 
the guides and his fellow-travellers, he was given the most 
extraordinary accounts of the Roman clergy and of Catholic 
practices. On inquiry, however, he found out that one of 
the most amusing occupations of the cicerones was to recount 
to each other the manner in which they imposed on the 
credulity of English travellers by telling them the most ex- 
travagant tales, and thereby earning handsome fees. They 
were always anxious to give as much of the most grateful 
food as he could take to a good gull, from whom they 
expected ample employment, and "John Bull," as they 
called all English-speaking travellers, was always quite dis- 
posed to feast upon the scandals of the Catholic Church ; 
wherefore, as such foul offal seemed to be the most agreeable 
to his palate, an abundant supply was always provided. 
And this is the society into which most of our travellers are 
thrown. Thus they receive their "first impression of 
Europe." So that, in fact, all the falsehoods which they 
produce are not fictions of their own imaginations. The 
Bishop adds that he could relate several instances where 



158 

some of these worthies contradicted their own statements to 
himself, and apologized for them, when they discovered who 
he was. 

In his eagerness to fasten the charge of selling indulgences 
upon the Catholic Church by anything that comes to his 
hand — the hearsay testimony of the lady correspondent at 
Bologna, or any other equally worthless tittle-tattle — your 
correspondent quotes an advertisement from a Chicago 
paper of "Plenary indulgences that maybe gained in the 
Holy Family Church," and a news item from the Boston 
Globe, in which it was announced that a "plenary indul- 
gence" would be granted to those who attended certain 
devotions "and complied with the necessary conditions." 
But to what purpose does he quote such newspaper items? 
Is it to prove that indulgences are still proclaimed and 
granted by the Catholic Church? No one denies it. Of 
course they are still proclaimed and granted to those " who 
comply with the necessary conditions," and so they will be 
to the end of time. But does this prove that they are sold? 
Does it prove that they are " pardons of guilt," or a license 
to commit sin ? There is not one word in the advertisement 
or the news item which your correspondent quotes, as if he 
had thereby made a great discovery, about the sale of an 
indulgence, nor in any way suggesting that one could be 
procured for money. 

Of course I do not expect your correspondent to believe 
the truth of Catholic doctrines, but I do ask that Catholic 
children shall not have text-books that traduce them thrust 
into their hands to study from. 

I know many excellent, amiable, and virtuous Protestants. 
I hold the doctrines which they believe, to be founded in 
error in many cases. But I would sooner lose my power 
of speech, if I know myself, than offer to any one of them 
such a gross insult as is offered to Catholics in the asser- 



159 

tion that their Church makes a traffic of God's forgiveness, 
and issues for cash licenses to commit sin. Much less, as a 
member of a school board, would I force a book containing 
such an insulting statement into the hands of his children. 

I cannot understand how any intelligent and well-read 
Protestant can yield to the unfounded delusion that Roman 
Catholics can purchase licenses to commit sin, or buy with 
money pardon for sins committed, as Swinton's text-book 
falsely asserts. If such were really the fact there could be 
no security in the State of Massachusetts for life, liberty, 
property, or peace. It is, indeed, astonishing that some Prot- 
estants who ought to be well informed should persist in 
asserting, against all evidence, that the Catholic Church 
makes indulgences a traffic in sin. In this land of freedom, 
where men so eagerly seek after truth, it shocks and afflicts 
us to find it charged in widely circulated publications that 
Catholic priests may give permission to commit certain 
crimes at fixed prices. No such infamous principle was ever 
taught by our Church in any country. It is a principle 
which would overthrow all religion, and subvert the whole 
social order. No person holding such a principle should be 
tolerated in any country ; because if he thought that by a 
certain money payment, and of moderate amount too, he 
could obtain the consent of Heaven to any crime he desired 
to commit, or its pardon for any that he had committed, no 
one would be safe from his hatred, his malice, or any of his 
selfish lusts. May God forgive those who, for their own 
purposes, thus misrepresent us to our fellow-citizens and 
bear false witness against us, thus perpetuating error and 
enmity ! 

Your correspondent remarks that the doctrine of indul- 
gence is very apt to be misunderstood, in fact is misunder- 
stood by the common people. Yet is it any more liable to 
misinterpretation, and hence to abuse, than the Protestant 



160 

■doctrine of justification by faith alone, which to uneducated 
minds may seem to absolve them from the obligation of 
avoiding sin and doing good? Every Christian sect, so far 
as I know, teaches that the repentant sinner will obtain par- 
don fromlGod whenever he appeals to him for mercy in the 
spirit of true contrition. The great mass of Protestants 
believe that, where sinners are truly repentant, "the blood 
of Jesus will cleanse them from all sin," and save them from 
liability to punishment. The first of the thirty-nine articles 
of the Church of England declares that " they are to be con- 
demned who deny the place of forgiveness to such as truly 
repent." If Protestants argue that an indulgence is com- 
monly understood asji " pardon of guilt and a license to com- 
mit sin," may not the argument, with equal reason and force, 
be retorted on themselves in the form of a contention that 
Protestantism ofiers'still easier terms of forgiveness ? Is not 
the Protestant doctrine of justification by faith alone fully as 
liable to be misunderstood and misinterpreted as the Catholic 
doctrine of indulgence, which requires not only repentance, 
but also confession and satisfaction ? 

I feel that this discussion has already reached, if indeed it 
has not passed, all useful limits, and has doubtless become 
wearisome not only to the editor, but to the readers of the 
Standard. It has necessarily been dull because the charges 
of your correspondent have been answered so many times 
before, and my task has been that of re-thrashing old straw. 
I shall, therefore, ask your indulgence for but one or two 
more letters, in which I propose to note a few further mis- 
statements in your correspondent's letters. Having done 
that, I shall gladly leave the whole matter to the judgment of 
fair-minded readers, for I am satisfied that they must clearly 
see that, in the words of the Christian Union, "Swinton's 
statement may reasonably be objected to not only by Catho- 
lics in the interest of their faith, but by all men in the 
niterests of accuracy." R. J. Johnson. 



161 



SOME SIDE ISSUES. 

PAROCHIAL SCHOOL BOOKS AND THEIR CRITICS. — A GLANCE AT 
MR. EDWIN D. MEAD'S PAMPHLET. 

[From the Declham Standard, April 6, 1889.] 

In his letters published in your issues of Feb. 9 and 
16 last, Rev. George W. Cooke seeks again to change the 
venue, as lawyers phrase it, by makiug an onslaught upon 
certain text-books in use in Catholic parochial schools. 
This, like much he has said in all of his letters, is a digres- 
sion from the point at issue, which is, simply, whether or 
not Swinton's "Outlines," in its statements of Catholic doc- 
trine and practice, does violence to the religious faith of 
Catholic parents and subjects them to outrage in the persons 
of their children. What is taught or left untaught in private 
schools, whether Catholic or Protestant, and whether good 
or bad text-books are used in such private schools, is clearly 
not pertinent to this simple question. Your correspondent, 
though he is not the profoundest of logicians, sees this no 
doubt as clearly as anybody. He drags in the parochial 
schools, and their text-books, as he has dragged in so many 
other foreign topics, by way of raising a cloud of dust, ex- 
citing prejudice, and so obscuring the actual question which 
we set out to discuss. It is the tactics that were adopted by 
the counsel in the old story, who said that when he was de- 
fending a client who had no case, he simply abused the 
plaintiif. 

It has pleased your correspondent to make extensive quo- 
tations from various text-books in use in Catholic parochial 
schools, quotations which he says are extremely inaccurate. 
The casual reader, noting his copious extracts from these 
Catholic text-books, as well as from various learned authors 
who have written on the subject of indulgences, would 



162 

naturally suppose that your correspondent had delved deep 
into the literature of this question. The evident desire of 
your correspondent, aside from his primary purpose of 
arousing ill-feeling against the Catholic Church, is to convey 
an impression of the wide range of his reading and the ex- 
haustive character of his study of the subject under discus- 
sion. His imposing superstructure of learning is based, 
however, upon a very slight foundation of actual research. 
Most of his quotations from Catholic text-books will 
be found marshalled in Mr. Edwin D. Mead's pamphlet 
entitled "The Roman Catholic Church and the SchooL 
Question," a pamphlet which is for sale at the Boston 
bookstores at fifteen cents a copy, while the rest of his learn- 
ing is derived from still cheaper anti-Catholic compositions. 
If any of your readers will buy a copy of Mr. Mead's bro- 
chure they will discover in its pages the sources of the rich 
streams of learning with which they have been lately re- 
freshed by your correspondent. They will see how, by 
the trifling investment of fifteen cents, your correspondent 
has found it easy to display a wealth of erudition and a 
luxuriant scholarship of which he had not heretofore been 
suspected. Shining thus with brilliant though reflected 
light, would it not have been a graceful thing to have given 
the original luminary some little credit, if it were no more 
than a passing mention of Mr. Mead's name ? 

Any one who thinks it worth the while (and the fifteen 
cents) to get a copy of Mr. Mead's pamphlet will find, more- 
over, that while your correspondent has carefully culled from 
its pages what the author has to say in criticism and depre- 
ciation of Catholic text-books, he has, with a characteristic 
monocular blindness, omitted all that Mr. Mead says in their 
praise. For example, on page 9 of this pamphlet, which has 
fitted your correspondent out so nicely with the ready-made: 
garments of research, Mr. Mead wrote as follows : 



163 

" If any of you are in doubt about the patriotism of your 
Roman Catholic brethren, you have only to examine the text- 
books — the histories, the reading books — used in the paro- 
chial schools. "Whatever criticism is to be passed upon some 
of these books — and I have a good deal to say about some 
of them presently — the lack of the patriotic element in them 
cannot be recorded. Many of these books ring with patri- 
otism. The reading books are as full of patriotic selections 
as most of the reading books used in the public schools. They 
ring too with the spirit of democracy. The history of Ireland, 
for these two long centuries, and the character of its institu- 
tions from which most of the Catholic emigrants of America 
have escaped, have not been such as to make any of them 
very enthusiastic for monarchies and aristocracies, and they 
are not enthusiastic and do not teach their children to be. 
However much f divine right ' of bishops there may be in the 
books, there is no 'divine right' of kings. There is much 
sharp condemnation of tyrannies, much warm approbation of 
free institutions. Towards this American republic there is 
especially a feeling of gratitude of a toleration such as Roman 
Catholics have enjoyed in no Protestant country in Europe. 
There are also pretty constant reminders of the intolerance 
and the disabilities under which Catholics have suffered in the 
Protestant world for the last two centuries. And is it to be 
wondered at ? When we reflect upon it, it is a sorry history." 

Again Mr. Mead says, speaking of two histories in use in 
parochial schools : 

"Here is a history — a history of the world, by John 
MacCarthy, a book of the same scope as Swinton's — to 
■which I wish to pay almost unqualified praise. . . . An 
exceedingly good book too is Hassard's ' History of the 
United States.'" 

In quoting from this pamphlet your correspondent appears 
to have indeed purposely ignored certain passages which it 
contains. "What are those passages? They are those in 
which Mr. Mead speaks of the partisan feeling excited by 
the discussion of Swinton's text-book, deplores what he justly 
describes as "a mass of violent Protestant extravagance, 



164 

misrepresentation, exaggeration, and abuse " on the subject,, 
and proceeds as follows : 

" This sort of thing we want to see eliminated from the 
present controversy. In an account of the work of Bishop 
England, of South Carolina, in one of these Catholic read- 
ing books, the writer remarks : ' He soon discovered that 
the Americans, though bitterly prejudiced against Catho- 
lics, were yet disposed to be just and even generous. Their 
hatred of the Church arose from utterly false notions con- 
cerning her histories and doctrines ; and unfortunately the 
Catholics possessed no means of correcting these erroneous 
views. The press was in the hands of Protestants, who 
made use of it to disseminate the most injurious and absurd 
statements concerning the Church. The great majority of 
the people had never seen a priest, had never heard a Catho- 
lic sermon, had never entered a Catholic church, and had 
nothing to rely upon but the false traditions which they or 
their ancestors had brought from England.' I believe that 
this is still an accurate description of multitudes of Amer- 
ican people. I hope that it is not a description of any 
Boston woman now preparing to vote on the school ques- 
tion. If any such is within sound of my voice, I advise 
her to indulge in no general talk about the Roman Cath- 
olic Church until she has read at least one good book 
which authoritatively represents it, until she has read, if she 
can get nothing better, some of these histories and readers 
used in the Catholic schools. There is much to criticise in 
these books, but I think that nine Protestants out of ten will 
be chiefly surprised at the worth that is in them." 

This, and much more in the same vein, Mr. Mead says in 
his pamphlet, besides the critical and derogatory things con- 
cerning Catholic school-books which your correspondent 
quotes with such gusto. But it was not for such passages as 
these that your correspondent was looking. He was search- 
ing in true partisan fashion only for the things that told on 
his side. 

What relevancy, however, have the merits or demerits of 
text-books used in Catholic parochial schools to the question 
we are supposed to be discussing, namely, the accuracy,. 



165 

fairness, and justice of Swinton's statements concerning the 
Catholic Church and her doctrines ? If it is true that inferior 
and inaccurate text-books are used in parochial schools, I am 
sorry for it, and I hope they will be||removed ; but, even if 
such be the case, does that in any way justify the use of 
inferior, inaccurate, and unfair text-books in the public 
schools of Dedham? Assume, for the moment, that paro- 
chial school books are not what they should be. Is that any 
reason why our public school books should be faulty too? 
The argument sought to be made apparently is that Catholic 
parochial schools teach history with a strongly Catholic col- 
oring, and therefore that the public schools are warranted 
and justified in teaching history with a strongly Protestant 
coloring. 

Surely it is not necessary to point out the fatal weakness 
in this argument. Protestants are not taxed to support the 
parochial schools. Catholics are taxed to support the public 
schools. Protestant children do not go to the parochial 
schools, and therefore cannot have their religious faith 
offended by the historical text-books used there, however 
strong their Catholic coloring may be. Catholic children do 
attend the public schools, and their religious faith is affronted 
and assailed when text-books are forced upon them that have 
a strong Protestant coloring. Suppose that Protestant par- 
ents were taxed and made to pay for the purchase of the 
Catholic text-books in use in the parochial schools, and 
were besides obliged to send their children to those schools 
to study from those books. Would they not say, and very 
properly, that it was an outrageous affront to put upon them 
and their religious convictions ? Yet that is exactly what 
Catholic parents are forced to submit to every day in the pub- 
lic schools. They must support them, they must send their 
children to them, and they must submit to have text-books 
full of anti-Catholic coloring put into their children's hands-. 



166 

And insult is added to injury in this case by the solemn 
assertion that the Protestant views and the Protestant inter- 
pretations of history which these text-books present are the 
real facts of history. From the Catholic stand-point this is an 
assumption utterly at variance with the truth. 

In this same letter of Feb. 9 last, it is evident that your 
correspondent desires to decoy me into a controversy over 
Anderson's " Manuals of History." His enthusiasm is charm- 
ing, but I must decline to follow him into a discussion of 
those or any other text-books, except the particular one in 
hand. I am not in the least concerned as to the merits of 
Anderson's " Manuals," nor have I any book to advocate as a 
substitute for Swinton's. It is quite immaterial to me what 
text-book is used, so long as it is one that is fair and truthful 
and does no violence to the religious faith of the pupils. 

The Anderson text-books, however, having been repre- 
sented by your correspondent as written in the interest of 
Catholics, their author may be properly allowed to speak for 
himself. In the following letters, addressed by Mr. Ander- 
son to prominent members of the Boston Committee of One 
Hundred, that gentleman's reply to his critics is given : 

[Copy.] 

Brooklyn, Dec. 14, 1888. 
Rev. Dr. James M. Gray : 

Dear Sir, — I am in receipt of yours of the 11th inst. in 
reply to mine of the 6th, in which I took exception to your 
course and statements in regard to my two "Manuals of 
General History," charging that these statements were "mis- 
leading," and that they did me "great injustice," which 
charge I am obliged, though with regret, to reiterate ; and be- 
sides that, to say, that the assertion that my book was " Roman- 
ized," meaning that it was altered to accommodate the text 
to the peculiar views of the Roman Catholic Church and its 
adherents, is utterly untrue. My book was written for the 
common schools of the United States, and was designed to 
be fair toward the peculiar views of all — favoring none and 



167 

offensive to none. This, it seems to me, who was for many 
years connected with the public schools of the city of New 
York, is the only proper course to pursue. 

You are well aware that history may be written, indeed is 
usually, from a Protestant or Catholic stand-point ; but a 
manual to be used by both Catholic and Protestant pupils 
should be strictly impartial ; and all moot points that cannot 
be so stated in a brief manner, as to give a fair consideration 
to both sides of the argument, should necessarily be omitted. 
Certainly one side should not be stated as if there were no 
other view taken. I am a Protestant myself, but this course, 
it seems to me, is the only correct one to take in the prepa- 
ration of text-books for our common schools, which, if they 
are to be preserved at all, must be absolutely non-sectarian. 

Yours truly, 

John J. Anderson. 



[Copy.] 

Brooklyn, Dec. 8, 1888. 
Hev. J. B. Dunn : 

Dear Sir, — Your letter of the 6th postmarked the 7th, 
was received this evening. It was evidently prepared for 
publication as you intimate. It is not a reply to either of 
my communications to you. 

On the 15th of last month you publicly asserted that 
the " Baltimore Council three years ago put both Anderson 
and Swinton on the index expurgatorius, but since that time 
the former has been Romanized, etc." That assertion is not 
true. To a fair criticism of my book I can have no objec- 
tion, but I do not propose to submit to misrepresentation. 

Yours, etc., 

John J. Anderson. 

It is not necessary that I should add anything to these 
explicit statements of Prof. Anderson. In this corre- 
spondence I have been insensibly led on until I have far- ex- 
ceeded the limits within which I intended to confine myself. 

I will trouble your readers with one more letter only, 
which will, I think, suffice to make perfectly clear the griev- 
ance of Catholic parents in this matter. Vicar-General 



168 

Byrne, of whom your correspondent speaks as a high Cath- 
olic authority, and whom he has quoted as saying that 
Swinton did not misrepresent the Catholic Church on the 
subject of indulgences, very distinctly and forcibly states the 
offensive character of Swinton's foot-note in these words : — 

"The injury that maybe done to the faith in immature 
minds by a general statement of that kind is incalculable, and 
makes us shudder to think how much mischief this text-book 
may have done in years gone by. . . . Why, it is one of the 
most barefaced attempts that I ever saw, to use the public 
schools for the purpose of bringing the Catholic Church into 
odium and contempt, and thus play into the hands of the 
sects, in professedly non-sectarian schools." 

That the reality of this grievance is now appreciated by 
all fair-minded readers of these articles I have little doubt. 
In that belief I will, therefore, after sending you one more 
letter to clear up a few points in the discussion that seem to 
call for a final word, leave the whole matter with confidence 
to the tair judgment of the people of Dedham. 

R. J. Johnson. 



A LAST KEJOINDER. 

LETTER FROM THE REV. GEORGE W. COOKE.* 
[Erom the Dedham Standard, April 13, 1889.] 

I read in your paper that Rev. R. J. Johnson is about to 
bring his letters to a close. As his style, his manner of 
treating his subject, his sophistry, his mud-throwing, refute 
him at every point, it is undesirable that I should reply to 
his lucubrations. For the sake of those who have given my 
articles a patient reading I wish to say, however, that my 

* The points of this letter are replied to in the introductory remarks 
(pages 1 to 15). — R. J. J. 



169 

article on the parochial schools and what is taught in them 
was not taken from Mr. Mead's pamphlet. I read Mr. 
Mead's pamphlet, I agree with him, and he did undoubtedly 
suggest several points of which I made use in my article ,- 
but beyond that I was not indebted to him. I read the 
books from which I quoted, and what I quoted was copied, 
with one exception, word for word from the books them- 
selves, and not from Mr. Mead. If any one cares to take 
the trouble to compare my article with Mr. Mead's pamphlet 
he will see that I quoted several paragraphs not used at all 
by him. Should any one wish to go further, I have the 
books in my study and they can be consulted there. 

Mr. Johnson charges me with garbling Maurel's book on 
indulgences. I quoted with great care, word for word, 
nearly a column of the Standard, from that book, in order 
that I might not misrepresent the position of the Catholics. 
The limit of space assigned me by the editor did not permit 
of my quoting the whole of the sermon and interview of 
Vicar-General Byrne, as I should have been glad to do. In 
fact, every charge brought against me of misrepresentation 
is absolutely false.* 

Once more, in my introduction I distinctly stated my pur- 
pose to go beyond Swinton's book in what I should write, 
taking that book simply as a text. In describing the 
parochial text-books I spoke of some of them as being very 
good, as they undoubtedly are ; but the best of them has as 

* If mere denial were equivalent to disproof, this would clear Mr. 
Cooke. But the garbled quotations from Maurel, the misrepresentation 
of Vicar -General Byrne's interview, and the manufactured quotations 
from the Pope's Encyclical, the Catholic World, the Catholic Review, and 
Cardinal Antonelli, remain unexplained, unjustified, and unjustifiable. 
The challenges to verify them made to Mr. Cooke over three months ago 
(April 13, 1889) also remain unanswered and unanswerable. Of what 
avail is his denial in the face of these facts? See Vicar-General Byrne's, 
letter on page 123; also see pages 93-97 as to Maurel, and pages 171-17& 
as to these spurious quotations. — R. J. J. 



170 

its main purpose to magnify the Catholic Church. That of 
itself condemns them. All intelligent people to-day wish to 
see the world without being compelled to use the spectacles 
of the Catholic or any other denomination. 

I detest all religious controversy. I have nothing against 
the Catholic Church as a church ; I should prefer to praise 
it rather than to condemn it.* What I detest is sectarianism 
wherever found, and the attempt to push the interests of a 
sect by unfair and unjust methods. So far as the Catholic 
Church attends to its legitimate work as a spiritual guide of 
the people, I have no controversy with it. When it begins 
to meddle with the public schools, I can no longer remain 
quiet. I say, hands off from the schools. 

George W. Cooke. 



BEARING FALSE WITNESS. 

ALLEGED QUOTATIONS FROM THE POPE'S ENCYCLICAL LETTER, 
AND FROM OTHER CATHOLIC AUTHORITIES SHOWN NOT TO BE 
GENUINE. — SOME DIRECT CHALLENGES TO TEST THEIR TRUTH. 
— THE REV. R. J. JOHNSON'S CLOSING LETTER. 

[From the Dedham Standard, April 13, 1889.] 

The patience of your readers must have been severely 
tried by this long and discursive discussion ; but I may 
reconcile them to this further tax upon their forbearance if 
I say at the start that I propose to write the welcome word 
" Finis " at the end of this letter and trouble them no more 
on this exhausted subject. 

It has been well said that misrepresentations do not cause 
any lasting injury, because they always lead people to inquire 

* From this assertion of Mr. Cooke, there seems to be ground of hope 
that he may yet — like Balaam, who began by cursing and ended by bless- 
ing — appear as the eulogist of the Catholic Church. To this desirable 
end it only remains that he should become instructed in its history and in 
its doctrines. — R. J. J. 



171 

into the facts, and inquiry develops truth. I feel that the 
misrepresentations of Catholic doctrine and practices by your 
correspondent, the Rev. George W. Cooke, have in this way 
at least been fruitful of good, for they have provoked inquiry 
and given an opportunity for the correct statement of many 
things concerning the Catholic Church and its teachings which 
have been heretofore widely misunderstood. 

Your correspondent has assumed the airs of profound lit- 
erary research by parading quotations from Catholic school- 
books which he has taken at second hand from Mr. Mead's 
pamphlet. More than this, in his letter of March 9, he poses 
as if he were on terms of familiarity with the Encyclicals of 
the Pope ; and when he descants upon " the attitude of the 
Catholic Church " as " expressed by the Pope in his Encycli- 
cal Letter," and proceeds to quote what purports to be the 
language of that historical document, the average reader 
may well exclaim, " Here indeed is a learned and scholarly 
controversialist ! Here is a scholarly disputant who goes to 
the original documents in the case, and draws his informa- 
tion straight from the fountain-head of historical facts. He 
is not only acquainted with the Protestant authorities on the 
subject, but is familiar with all that Catholic writers have 
said upon it in Catholic magazines, periodicals, and else- 
where." Alas ! how many are the illusions of which the 
reader is likely to become the victim in following the dis- 
quisitions of a writer like your correspondent ! He appropri- 
ates whatever excerpts come in his way, without verifying 
them, and I suspect I should be within the mark if I said 
without being able to verify them by consulting the docu- 
ments in the original language in which they were written 
and published. It is the common habit of hasty and hence 
unskilful writers to seize upon quotations ascribed to emi- 
nent authorities just as they happen to find them in the 
pamphlets of the period, and to use them as their own. In 



172 

this way such writers often put into the mouths of distin- 
guished authors words which those authors have never used, 
and thus their own ignorance of the subject is laid bare. 
Such a habit obviously places any controversialist at the 
mercy of the slip of another's pen ; and when that pen 
•chances to be the pen of a partisan hack, writing to order 
and for the express purpose of putting a certain desired gloss 
on the facts of history, to the end that his employers may 
feel that they have got their money's worth, we can easily 
see to what depths of garbling, distortion, and even down- 
right forgery a controversialist may come, who thus depends 
upon what I may call the literary slop-shops for his quota- 
tions. The partisan leaflets and pamphlets issued by the 
anti-Catholic repositories, the anonymous communications 
sent to daily papers, and the " no-Popery " tirades delivered 
by demagogues masquerading on public platforms and in 
pulpits, are the necessary resort of ill-equipped disputants 
who are unable to forge their own arguments out of honest 
materials collected from the storehouses of historical truth. 
Their data hold the same relations to standard authorities as 
that which the contents of the barrel at one's back door hold 
to the larder : they are simply the leavings and sweepings 
of literature, unsavory, malodorous, and serviceable only to 
the wandering dog. 

From such receptacles your correspondent has produced 
the following alleged quotations from the Pope's Encyclical 
Letter : 

XLV. " The Catholic Church has a right to interfere in 
the discipline of the public schools, and in the arrangement 
of the studies of the public schools, and in the choice of the 
teachers for these schools." 

XLVII. "Public schools, open to all children for the 
education of the young, should be under the control of the 
Catholic Church, and should not be subjected to the civil 
power, nor made to conform to the opinions of the age." 



173 

You will observe that these paragraphs are given in quo- 
tation-marks, as if they were the actual and exact words of 
the Pope. Now, the fact is that the Pope has never used any 
such language. There is no Encyclical of the Pope contain- 
ing these propositions. If your correspondent can find any 
Encyclical of the Pope containing them, or either of them, 
I invite him to publish them in the Standard, at regular ad- 
vertising rates, and send the bill to me. He will never find 
such words in any Encyclical. In ascribing them to the Pope 
he has simply been the victim of the rummaging habit ; he has 
•delved among the literary offal of anti-Catholic repositories, 
and he palms off what he has thus collected as if it were well- 
authenticated historical fact. • 

It will evidently be giving him information to say that the 
propositions which he designates as numbers 45 and 47 are 
not to be found in any Encyclical at all, either in the shape 
in which he has misquoted them from some one else who had 
first mis-translated them, or in any other shape. They are 
evidently misquoted from the syllabus which was attached to 
the Encyclical Letter, "Quanta cura." Your correspondent 
again assumes to quote from the same letter as follows : 

"I anathematize all who maintain the liberty of the press, 
and all advocates of liberty of speech, which is the liberty of 
perdition." 

And again I say that this language is not to be found in 
any Encyclical Letter of the Pope. I challenge your corre- 
spondent to produce a true copy of any letter containing the 
words which he attributes to the head of the Catholic Church. 
If he can find an Encyclical in which these words appear, let 
him publish this also in full in the Dedham Standard, at 
advertising rates, and send the bill to me. It is a com- 
monly circulated slander upon the Catholic Church that it 
condemns the freedom of the press. Most assuredly it does 
not condemn the lawful liberty either of speech or of the 



174 

press, but only that unlawful and wanton freedom which is 
unjust and licentious. It is obvious to every reflecting mind 
that the liberty to print or say anything or everything is the 
most hurtful of liberties. And do the laws of the United 
States themselves lay no • restrictions upon the freedom of 
speech and of the press? Have we not a law of libel, a law 
against using threatening language, a law against perjury, a 
law against blasphemy, and a law against obscene literature? 
Was not the Anarchist paper which incited to violence and 
murder seized and suppressed by the Chicago police? There 
is a difference as to what the Church tolerates in the use of 
language and what the State tolerates, and there well may be 
a difference, because the Church deals with the domain of 
conscience and the State with the domain of social order. 
But the fundamental principle that prescribes limits to the 
freedom of the press and of speech is recognized by both 
authorities alike. 

Again, your correspondent affects to quote from Cardinal 
Antonelli. What does he make that distinguished prelate 
say ? That " it is better that children grow up in ignorance 
than that they should be educated in such schools as the 
State of Massachusetts supports," etc., giving these words 
and those that follow in quotation-marks as the actual words 
of Cardinal Antonelli. I deny that these words appear in 
any well-authenticated public deliverance or utterance of that 
cardinal, and I challenge your correspondent to justify his 
quotation of them as if they had thus appeared. If he 
responds to this challenge, and produces any letter, speech, 
address, or other public utterance of Cardinal Antonelli, in 
which this language occurs, I invite him to publish that also 
in the Dedham Standard, at advertising rates, and send the 
bill to me. 

But this is not all. In his pseudo-quotations from the 
Pope's Encyclical Letter, your correspondent shows plainly 



175 

that if he has ever seen that document he is not able to trans- 
late it any more than to understand it. His alleged citations 
are so ludicrous a travesty of the text that it is hard to read 
them and keep from laughing. It is not the Pope's Encycli- 
cal, but Mr. Cooke's, that your readers have had quoted for 
them ; and it is not even Mr. Cooke's original Encyclical. 
He has so distorted the sense of the Pope's language that I 
should be at a loss to discover what he thought he was trans- 
lating, only that I can see plainly that this preposterous 
translation is not his work at all, but is taken bodily from 
the literary garbage boxes. Upon the whole, however, these 
disquisitions of your correspondent on the strength of his 
untruthful citations from the Pope, and from Cardinal Anto- 
nelli, will serve a useful purpose. They show his inability 
to give an accurate statement of facts, a limitation for which 
he is not to blame, for he did not make himself. But they 
show something that is worse than incapacity ; they show 
that he does not argue with any regard for justice and truth. 
Throughout your correspondent's letters there is an offen- 
sive imputation to Catholics of lack of patriotism and sus- 
picion of their loyalty to American institutions. To sustain 
these imputations your correspondent quotes what he alleges 
to be utterances of the Catholic World and of the Catholic 
Review, in which these periodicals are made to say that the 
Catholic Church aims at ascendancy in this country, the con- 
trol of all legislation, and the suppression of individual as 
well as newspaper opinion. These are the exact words 
which your correspondent pretends to quote from the Cath- 
olic World: 

" The Catholic Church numbers one third of the American 
population, and if its membership shall increase for the next 
thirty years as it has for the thirty years past, in 1900 Rome 
will have a majority, and be bound to this country, and keep 
it. There is ere long to be a State religion in this country, 
and that State religion is to be Roman Catholic. The Roman 



176 

Catholic is to wield his vote for the purpose of securing- 
Catholic ascendancy in this country. All legislation must 
be governed by the will of God, unerringly indicated by 
the Pope. Education must be controlled by Catholic au- 
thorities, and, under education, the opinion of the individual 
and the utterances of the press are included. Many opinions 
are to be furnished by the secular arm under the authority of 
the Church, even to war and bloodshed." 

Now if your correspondent has in fact found the foregoing 
words in the Catholic World, he knows, of course, where he 
found them, and he can give us the number, volume, date, 
and page of that magazine in which they appeared. I call 
upon him to give us those particulars, so that the truthful- 
ness of his quotation may be established. And unless he 
thus justifies his quotation, he will stand convicted of having 
fabricated it out of whole cloth. To manufacture writings 
for the purpose of condemning the writer to whom such man- 
ufactured writings are attributed, is called in law by a very 
ugly name. In England at the present time they call it 
Pigottism, after the man who, being exposed in this kind of 
work, took refuge from his shame in suicide. 

Again, your correspondent quotes the following declara- 
tions as from the Catholic Review: 

"While a State has rights, she has them only in virtue 
and by permission of the superior authority, and that author- 
ity can only be expressed through the Church. Protestant- 
ism of every form has not, and never can have, any right 
where Catholicism has triumphed ; and, therefore, we lose 
the breath we expend in declaiming against bigotry and in- 
tolerance, and in favor of religious liberty, or the right of 
any man to be of any religion as best pleases him." 

Now, I say again that if the above words were found by 
your correspondent in the Catholic Review, he knows where 
he found them. I demand from him the volume, page, and 
date of the Catholic Review in which those words are to be- 



177 

found ; and in default of his furnishing them I charge him 
with having framed this alleged quotation to suit his own 
purposes. 

Can there be anything worse in argument than to invent 
evidence and put it into the mouths of witnesses who never 
gave it? Is there any possibility of honest discussion with 
an opponent who imputes language to Catholic writers which 
they have never used ? The recognized canons of honorable 
controversy are outraged when spurious quotations are thus 
called into service. And if such base coin is to be circu- 
lated in lieu of the honest currency of genuine quotation, 
how is it possible that the general reader should be led to a 
just conclusion? I call upon your correspondent to publicly 
verify these pretended quotations. Unless he can, they must 
be nailed to the counter as counterfeits and forgeries. 

No doubt Catholic journals and magazines, like others, 
have at times said unwise things ; but I never heard of a 
lunatic being at the head of a Catholic paper or magazine, 
and none but a lunatic would have admitted such stuff to his 
pages as that which your correspondent alleges he has quoted 
from the Catholic World and the Catholic Review. The 
sentiments attributed by these alleged quotations are repug- 
nant to all the principles and teachings of the Catholic 
Church, and I repudiate them as the coarsest conceivable 
travesty of Catholic sentiment and opinion. Why did not 
your correspondent verify these quotations, before rushing 
into print with them? When he started out, his promise 
was that he would prove his case by appealing to a " con- 
sensus of unbiased historians " ; and here behold, he is ten- 
dering us second-hand quotations, snatched from the ready- 
made no-Popery literature of the day, unverified and 
un verifiable. From "a consensus of unbiased historians" 
to counterfeit quotations accepted on credit from anonymous 
letter writers and pamphleteers and fished out of the other 



178 

common sewers of falsehood and forgery, is a tremendous 
drop. Your correspondent has made it. The Catholic 
Church, of course, can no more be held accountable for a 
wild or foolish utterance by a Catholic paper than the Unita- 
rian Church for the utterances of your correspondent in this 
controversy ; and this latter responsibility is one, surely, 
that no charitable person would impute. Much less can the 
Catholic Church be held responsible for quotations of words 
falsely purporting to be from Catholic publications. 

I suppose that your correspondent is, in this instance, as 
in the others already pointed out, a victim to his unfortunate 
practice of borrowing his quotations from unveracious pam- 
phleteers. I have no doubt that he obtained these alleged 
quotations by cutting them, without credit and without veri- 
fication, from the letter of an anonymous correspondent in the 
Boston Transcript, the writer of which had enough sense of 
decency not only to withhold his name but also to give the 
date of the Catholic World and of the Catholic Review from 
which the quotations are said to be taken. From the same 
anonymous letter your correspondent has also obtained his 
quotation from the Catholic Review ; and from other columns 
of the same paper he has appropriated (and again without 
giving credit) his Chicago announcement of indulgences, and 
his extracts from the Chicago Church Calendar. This is the 
secret of your correspondent's imposing display of literary 
research ; and it also furnishes a key to his peculiar concep- 
tion of what constitutes a " consensus of unbiased historians." 
It has been left for him to show that " unbiased historians'' and 
anonymous correspondents of daily papers are the same 
thing. 

But what does the Catholic World really say ? I find in 
its columns (Vol. XX., pages 623, 624, 625) an able and 
exhaustive article entitled "Religion and State in our Repub- 
lic," which directly deals with the subject of the relation of 



179 

the Catholic Church to the institutions of this country, and 
which expresses views that are totally at variance with those 
which your correspondent imputes to it. The following are 
a few extracts from this article : 

"Without any question . . . the Catholics of this country 
are agreed in the conviction that the Republican institutions of 
the United States are the best and only possible ones for our 
country. They have no desire to subvert them, and there 
has never been any conspiracy against them except in the 
malicious or deluded brains of fanatical and anti-Catho- 
lic writers and speakers and of the crowd which they have 
duped. Genuine Catholics will never conspire against our 
government and laws, but will always be true and loyal 
American citizens. If the majority of the people, or the 
whole people were to become Catholics they would not use 
their power to subvert our American institutions, or substi- 
tute for them those of any European nation. On the con- 
trary, nothing could happen which would secure the perpe- 
tuity of the Republic and promote its political prosperity and 
glory with anything like the influence which the Catholic 
religion would exercise in producing such desirable results. 
. . . But what would be the action of Catholics if they should 
ever become the majority, in regard to requiring or prohibit- 
ing by law those things in which the Catholic conscience differs 
from the Protestant and non-Catholic standard of right and 
wrong? It is always necessary in such cases for all parties 
to exercise the greatest forbearance, moderation, and fairness 
towards cne another, in order that these questions should 
have a peaceable solution. Therefore those violent and 
fanatical or selfish demagogues, both clerical and lay, who 
seek to exasperate the non-Catholic citizens of this country 
against their Catholic fellow-citizens, are the most dangerous 
enemies of the public peace. We appeal to all candid, im- 
partial, intelligent American citizens to say who are they 
who seek to fan the embers of strife into a flame ; are they 
Catholic leaders or are they the chiefs and orators of a vio- 
lent, sectarian, anti-Catholic party? Our Catholic citizens, 
if fairly treated, will always respect the rights of their fel- 
low-citizens. . . . They will never seek to tyrannize over 
their fellow-citizens, to establish their religion by force, or 
compel any one to do those things which are required only 
by the Catholic conscience." 



180 

These are the actual opinions and sentiments of the Catho- 
lic World. The reader will see how far they are from 
expressing a desire to establish an intolerant control over 
non-Catholic thought and speech. 

After attributing to the Catholic World these illiberal ;md 
intolerant views which it never expressed or held, your cor- 
respondent naively asks w T hether " if the Catholic Church 
does triumph," it will continue the public schools and grant 
general toleration. 

This is quite outside of the question which we are sup- 
posed to have been all this time discussing ; but your corre- 
spondent drags it in, as he has dragged in so many other 
extraneous matters, for the manifest purpose of stirring slum- 
bering prejudices and exciting the latent fires of bigotry. 
The question was answered early in the history of the coun- 
try, by the State of Maryland, founded as a Catholic colony, 
where the Catholic Church was distinctly in the ascendant. 
The broadest toleration was granted to the non-Catholic peo- 
ple of Maryland, by the Catholic authorities, and no greater 
liberty of religious opinion and worship has ever been enjoyed 
on this continent. 

Brownson, an eminent Catholic writer, emphatically de- 
clares in his works (Vol. X., page 238) that the very prin- 
ciples of the Catholic religion require us "to assert and main- 
tain as broad a toleration as our American Constitution 
guarantees.'' And again (Vol. XVIII., pages 362 and 363) : 

" No Catholic writer has ever written that ' religious liberty 
is only to be endured till the opposite can be established with 
safety to the Catholic world,' or that 'the Catholics of Amer- 
ica are bound to abide by the interpretation put upon the 
Constitution of the United States by the Pope of Rome.' . . . 
All we ask for our Church, we have said over and over 
again, is f an open field and fair play.' We demand for her 
as a right, which the State and all individuals are bound to 
respect, full liberty to profess and practise her faith and dis- 



181 

•cipline ; and what we claim for her in face of the civil 
authority, or of secular society, we have uniformly expressed 
our readiness to concede to the sects, nay, if it were neces- 
sary, to defend for them." 

One more point and I am done. Throughout your cor- 
respondent's letters, as I have said, there is a studied and 
systematic effort to impute to Catholics lack of patriotism 
and disloyalty to American institutions. There is unfortu- 
nately a class of controversialists, of whom your corre- 
spondent is typical, who cannot conceive of a patriotic 
citizen except as a man who necessarily holds the same 
religious and political views as themselves. Yet it will be 
obvious to less egotistical minds that a man may love his 
country and its institutions, and be a good citizen in the full- 
est sense of the term, without accepting Swinton's text- 
book, or accepting your correspondent's coarse conceptions 
of Catholic teachings and practices. Disagreement with Rev. 
Mr. Cooke is not the same thing as disloyalty to the Consti- 
tution and laws of the United States. The notion that the 
refuting of his errors and the information of his ignorance is 
the same thing as treason to the American flag is merely a 
whiff of that abnormal conceit which breathes like a strong 
perfume throughout his letters on this subject. Catholic 
citizens have, indeed, no occasion to protest their loyalty to 
this country ; they have proved it on hundreds of battle- 
fields, during our Civil War, and sealed their devotion to it 
with many thousands of their lives. 

At the Catholic Total Abstinence Convention held in 
Boston last August, Bishop Keane, President of the Catholic 
University, eloquently resented the slanderous insinuation of 
your correspondent's letters, and expressed the sentiment of 
loyalty to America and her institutions which every Catholic 
citizen shares. He spoke as follows : — 



182 

" I declare before God and before man that the Catholic 
Church looks upon our country and liberty and institutions 
with a mingled love and admiration. [Applause.] Here, 
in the presence of the American people and in the sacred 
shadow of that shrine to American liberties, I say that that 
man who says that in the aims of the Catholic Church there 
is anything antagonistic to the principles of our govern- 
ment, — that man lies. [Tremendous applause."] It is 
a comfort to know that not every lie is an intentional viola- 
tion of the truth. [Laughter and applause.] There are 
lies that come only from ignorance ; and as our blessed Lord 
said, I say, 'Forgive them, for they know not what they say.'" 

Nothing remains for me to say, except to thank the editor 

of the Standard for the generous courtesy with which he has 

given me the use of his space for a full statement of my side 

of the case, and the readers of the Standard for their 

patience, upon which, indeed, I feel that I have trespassed 

too long. And with these acknowledgments I leave the 

whole matter in dispute between JRev. Mr. Cooke and myself 

to the fair and dispassionate decision of all my readers, and 

especially of the citizens of Dedham. 

R. J. Johnson. 



APPENDIX 



A PLEA FOE TOLERATION. 

THE UNWISE CRUSADE OF THE PROTESTANTS. A DISPASSIONATE 
REVIEW ON THE SCHOOL CONTROVERSY BY MR. HENRY WINN. 

[From the Boston Herald, Dec. 8, 1888.] 

The public-school question demands the attention of every 
citizen who looks beyond the temporary expedients which 
partisans, political or religious, adopt to effect their ends, at 
the higher expediency of conducting public affairs in the 
interests of civil liberty. Unlike our ancestors, we have had 
no struggle to establish the rules of action on which our lib- 

Do 

erties depend, and we forget their value. Freedom of reli- 
gious opinion, without the interference of any agent, teacher, 
or official, in the pay of the State — liberty of worship in 
short is, as classed by Lieber, one of the primordial rights 
of man. Forgetting this, a considerable body of the Prot- 
estant clergy and laity seem to have entered into a mad 
scheme to elect a majority of the School Board, which shall 
be distinctively Protestant, and force an issue as to what 
denomination shall control the board, where no doctrinal 
religion should be tolerated. The following seem to be the 
salient facts. 

In May last Swinton's " Outlines of the World's History "" 
was taught in the English High School. This work, in stating 
the incidents of the Reformation, recites that Pope Leo X., 
to raise money, adopted an extensive sale of indulgences, 
which, in former ages, had been a source of large profit to the 



184 

Church ; that, the Dominican friars, having a monopoly of the 
sale in Germany, employed an agent, Tetzel, one of their 
own number, who carried it on in a manner very offensive, 
especially to the Augustinian friars, which agent one of them, 
Martin Luther, took the lead in opposing. In a foot-note 
under these statements Swinton gives this definition : 

"These indulgences were, in the early ages of the Church, 
remissions of the penances imposed upon persons whose sins 
had brought scandal on the community. But in process of 
time they were represented as actual pardons of guilt, and 
the purchaser of indulgence was said to be delivered from all 
his sins." 

This definition offends the Catholics, we understand, be- 
cause it contains the basis of a false inference, injurious to 
their faith, and a suppression of important facts, which, if 
the partial statement be made, ought to appear. The words, 
"These indulgences were in the early ages of the Church 
remissions of the penances " — a statement of what the 
Church did make them — followed so closely by the words, 
" But in process of time they were represented as actual par- 
dons of guilt, and the purchaser of indulgence was said to be 
delivered from all his sins," no person being named as the 
maker of these representations, seem fairly to imply that the 
Church made or authorized them. 

This they indignantly deny. They state that an indulgence 
was not a pardon for sin, nor a permission to commit sin, 
but a remission of certain temporal punishment due to sins, 
after contrition, and after the sin had been forgiven, and that 
the Church, instead of being responsible for Tetzel's course, 
disciplined him. 

We do not understand that their position as to these facts 
can be successfully controverted. They claim, therefore, 
that, if the book were fair to their tenets, it would state 
them. This book is to be placed in the hands of children. 



185 

A nice critic might indeed say that the words do not dis- 
tinctly allege that the Church represented these indulgences 
to be actual pardons of guilt, though he could not say they 
do not imply that. But what impression would the child 
bear away? Even the teacher told the pupils that an indul- 
gence was a "permission to commit sin," giving illustrations 
which he states were merely to elucidate the text. This 
shows his idea. And the committee say that the examina- 
tion papers of the boys reveal in their minds erroneous and 
even grotesque notions on the subject. A text-book, then, if 
the Catholic position is true as to the facts, must be free from 
this obscurity, and must state the important connected cir- 
cumstances, if it is not unfairly to prejudice the child's mind 
against the Catholic religion. 

The law of Massachusetts (Pub. Stats., Chap. 44, Sect. 32) 
plainly forbids the School Committee " to direct to be pur- 
chased or used in the public schools, school-books calculated 
to favor the tenets of any particular sect of Christians." 
This includes, of course, books calculated to disparage the 
tenets of any sect, for disparaging one favors another. A 
text-book may not even set out truths marshalled in a way 
w calculated " to have the prohibited effect. 

How, in the light of these facts and this law, the commit- 
tee could do otherwise than to strike the book from the list 
as they did, when the question was raised, we leave to any 
fair man to determine. And yet a Protestant junta proposes 
that every man who so voted is to be ostracized from the 
board, without the benefit of clergy. 

Nor is this all. The teacher, as a special committee 
found, not only told the pupils that an indulgence was a per- 
mission to commit sin, but later added : " Should a murderer 
be brought before a judge he would only have to put his 
hand in his pocket and produce indulgence papers to be par- 
doned." Also, " you pay so much money in advance for 



186 

leave to commit certain sins." And when a Catholic pupit 
objected, this teacher among other things said, " Well, you 
would make a kind of penance out of an indulgence." "I 
may be wrong, however, I was not there and did not go to 
Mr. Tetzel and ask how T much I would have to give to kill 
Mr. Jackson's cow, or to put an iron steeple (staple?) 
before a railway train and throw a number of people into 
eternity." 

Is it strange that when the law is so nice as to forbid in 
the schools even oral comment on the Bible, the Catholics 
should revolt at this treatment and begin to inquire whether 
they had any rights that Protestants were bound to respect ? 

It did result in a protest from Father Metcalf. But the 
School Committee only changed the teacher from mediaeval to 
ancient history, without change of rank or salary. How 
was this mild action received by the ultra-Protestants? Did 
they have one word of condemnation for the conduct of the 
teacher ? Did they not rather organize and demand that the 
Swinton History be restored because it had been used ten 
years, and because, as they alleged, the foot-note contains a 
" true statement of history," without traversing the allegation 
that other truth was suppressed, or that the book " was cal- 
culated to favor the tenets" of the Protestants, contrary to 
law? 

And when the School Committee could not lawfully comply,, 
did they not declare war upon them and organize a commit- 
tee to boycott them? Did they not, fresh from their own 
private sectarian schools, enter into nice disquisitions as to 
how they could by means of the State lawfully shut up the 
sectarian schools of the Catholics, and force Catholic children 
into this kind of public training, appealing to the old plea 
of State necessity, under which tyrants have for ages sup- 
pressed the liberties of their subjects? 

Were not proposals made so intemperate that a fair writer 



187 

cannot quote them without injustice to the more discreet? 
Did they not, well knowing the opposition of the Catholics 
to woman suffrage, and apparently confident that they could 
use this weapon without being struck back, by reason of the 
Catholic conscience on the subject, hale out from 10,000 to 
15,000 women from their congregations to register and beat 
the School Committee ? The writer at least was informed 
that 5,000 had been assessed before a probable Catholic 
appeared. Usually but a few hundreds vote. 

Finally, when the excitement reached a fever, some of the 
younger Catholics, against the advice of leaders, began to 
organize the women sympathetic with their cause. They 
thronged the City Hall. The writer inquired of many why 
they came. They all replied in various terms : " Because 
the Protestant women were banded together to drive Catho- 
lics from the School Board, aDd Catholic teachers from the 
schools." 

The vices of a thousand years ago have been heaped at 
the doors of the Catholics of Boston. The fever may be 
judged from the style of the pastor of our most conservative 
church. He declares : " Amid the awful predictions with 
which the canon of revelation closes, not a single ray of scrip- 
ture hope can be found to gild the destiny of papal Rome. 
A dense, unbroken cloud of portentous judgment lowers 
upon its horizon. No other light meets the eye of the 
observer than the glare of an awful thunderbolt, and no 
other sound breaks upon the ear than the glad shout of the 
universe, which tells of everlasting overthrow." And this 
is the " ice " of Park Street ! 

And yet the Catholics seem calm. With rare exceptions 
they have shown the judicial temper and moderation needed 
on the School Committee to a far greater extent than their 
adversaries. 

At what; do we complain? Not that women vote, which 



188 

is their indubitable right. It is at making the Catholic faith 
a bar to nomination where no religion ought to be consid- 
ered, evidenced by a ticket without a Catholic on it, put 
forth on the flimsy plea that Catholics hold over ; at the 
attempt at sectarian teaching not condemned ; at the attack 
on the committee for doing what seems right, at least what 
they deemed right ; at the bitter discussion ; the demand to 
restore the book, right or wrong : the successful attempt to 
prevent the nomination of every man who opposed, no mat- 
ter how conscientiously ; at the organized effort to bring out 
women, who never would have thought of voting, to carry a 
religious test which never ought to be made. 

A few comments on this wretched controversy seem 
demanded, and the first is that the whole matter was trivial, 
affording no grounds for this Protestant crusade. If a son 
of Rev. Dr. Moxom had been instructed in the public school 
that the Baptist Church had a habit of insuring immunity to 
train-wreckers for cash, or if a text-book carried that impli- 
cation, we might expect storms in the Protestant horizon ; 
but we should call it puerile if, on rectification of the wrong, 
all Catholic Boston were lashed into fury, and bands of angry 
priests were marshalling armies of women to storm the Prot- 
estant citadels. 

Next it emphasizes the folly of holding the Catholic citizen 
responsible for all the doctrines of the Church. Suppose it 
does advance theories inconsistent with paramount loyalty to 
the State, even requiring superior fealty to Rome. We can 
only deal with the overt act of the citizen. We have no 
rio-ht to ostracize him till he has shown that his doctrines 
unfit him for his duties. And, dealing with facts, have men, 
as Catholics, shirked from our armies, refused our levies, 
demanded immunity for crime, or done anything to weaken 
the fabric of society? In countries distinctively Catholic 
does the Church rule the State ? Does the Pope rule Italy 



189 

— the clerical party control France ? If not, whence our 
fears ? 

Again, this mad projection of religion into the school ques- 
tion alienates the friends of the public schools among the 
Catholics. A great part of the Catholic laity have always 
defended our schools ; they do to-day, and send their chil- 
dren there. But they will not continue to do so if we per- 
mit the books which we place in their children's hands, and 
the teachers who explain them, to cast odium on things they 
deem sacred ; if we, when a committee rectifies the wrong, 
brandish our arms in the air, declare Rome to be the mother 
of harlots, try with an army of women to force back the ob- 
jectionable book, and boycott every committee-man, Catholic 
or otherwise, who objects to such tactics. 

Another important point is that the children in the public 
schools of this very class, whose religion is to debar them 
from seats in the school management, must far outnumber 
the children of those who are making this disturbance. 
Such have been the pernicious theories and resultant prac- 
tice of the native Americans in Massachusetts in the rela- 
tions of the sexes, and the individuation of woman, that 
with eight times more in proportion of the youthful and 
child-producing population absent in the West in 1850 than 
in 1880, the average birth-rate to natives was 22.12 to each 
one thousand people per annum then, while in the five years 
ending 1880 it was only 15.44. The lowest rate in the lead- 
ing states of Europe during the twenty years ending 1879 
was 26 per 1,000 in France. This means extinction; and 
we find that while in 1880 there were 902,354 living in 
Massachusetts who were born of native parents, the number 
had fallen in J 885 to 855,491. The Puritan race has com- 
mitted hari-kari and steadily wends its march to the grave. 
But the birth-rate to the foreign born in Massachusetts was 
49.52. Whatever may be the truth of her tenets, it is to 



190 

the eternal honor of the Catholic Church that while the 
Protestant clergy are powerless to stem the current of the 
hour, — nay, often jump into its swim, — Rome throws her 
arms, like the sacred circle of Richelieu, about the homes of 
her people, and lifts her lamp to light an undiminished 
throng down the pathway of future generations. 

We know of no returns showing the relative number of 
children belonging to the different religious sects in the 
public schools ; but we may get some idea from the fact that 
the children born to native parents in Boston in the five 
years ending 1880 who are now, so far as living, from eight 
to thirteen years of age, were 14,804, while the number 
born to foreigners here was 25,530, those of mixed parent- 
age being 9,428, and of parentage not stated, 2,984. Giving 
the natives half those of mixed parentage and their share of 
the rest the numbers stand : Of native parentage, 20,613 ; 
of foreign, 32,133. But this is not fair to the foreign ele- 
ment. For of the natives (among whom are the native 
parents referred to) 112,525 are the immediate children of 
foreigners, mainly young Irish-native people. Allowing 
that they are only twice as prolific as the other natives, 
while the foreign element is more than three times, the chil- 
dren of this period of pure native stock may be counted as 
7,669 against 45,077 of the foreign element, or about one 
seventh of the whole. It is true the foreign element are not 
all Catholic. 

But the persons of Irish parentage alone in Boston exceed 
all of native parentage by nearly 13,000. And to admit 
that the people engaged in this crusade who have stricken 
every Catholic from their tickets, as well as every commit- 
tee-man who voted against restoring the Swinton book, 
represent one quarter of the children of Boston entitled to 
use public schools, would strain the probabilities. 

If, when the now inevitable hour of Catholic supremacy 



191 

in voting power shall come in Boston, the voters sympathiz- 
ing with that faith shall exclude every Protestant from their 
ticket, and every man who has shown a disposition to be 
fair to the Protestants by votes in the board, they will not, 
indeed, be practising the precept of doing as they would be 
done by, any more than the Protestants are doing, but of 
doing as they have been done by. If these excited clergy- 
men and their female friends had been led by the Jesuits 
themselves, they could hardly have served their purpose 
better than by engaging in this proscription at the ballot 
box, this building up of parochial schools by rendering the 
public schools obnoxious to Catholics contrary to law, this 
kindling of a religious fervor in Catholic ranks by the reflex 
fires of denunciation — this attempted advantage, which to 
the Catholic must appear a foul one, in the use of woman 
suffrage. 

In the arena of woman suffrage itself the Catholic leaders 
must indeed be far-seeing if, when it is used as a weapon 
against their religion, they do not retaliate. Should they 
do this unitedly, the Protestants of this city would be 
snowed under so far as to be lost. The excess of foreign 
females over males was two and a half times greater in pro- 
portion in 1880 than among the natives. The Catholic 
women would not only be far better united, but a far greater 
number would come to the polls if the Church should so de- 
termine. The political power of the priests would be ex- 
alted even more than that of our clergy, and only a rare self- 
abnegation rejects the present prize for the permanent good 
of their people. 

Our Puritan stock will not recognize their changed condi- 
tion, but act as if their control were to be perpetual. They 
will not recognize their loss of numbers till they are counted 
among the scattering. They may, indeed, secure a tempo- 
rary lease of power by using the arm of the State to deprive 



192 

of self-government these people in Boston who outvote 
them by denying to them, as they have, the right to tax 
themselves, to choose their own police, — and by the other 
expedients annually urged at the State House, — which would 
leave Boston less free than Berlin. But even that must end. 
For the same causes that have left them so far behind here 
are operative through the State as well. The same relative 
decline shows there. If they cling to their idols, they have 
only the poor privilege to be buried with them. 

Prudence, then, if nothing more, should open their eyes 
to the truth that these two great religions should live to- 
gether in amity. If, as we proudly feel, there is a splendor 
in the fire of John Knox defining to queens their right to 
rule, the Jesuit Bourdaloue in the days of arbitrary power 
painting a sinner with the details of his vices to the haugh- 
tiest monarch in Europe and thundering in his ear, "Thou art 
the man," is not to be called the son of a " harlot," even to 
spite his mother church. 

Each seeks the same end — the salvation of men through 
Christ. Each is largely adapted to the wants of its people. 
Why, then, quarrel, like differing doctors over a dying 
patient, when a sinner enters heaven by either gate? 

Henry Winn. 



SWINTON'S "OUTLINES" REVIEWED. 

SOME OF ITS GLARING ERRORS BOTH OR OMISSION AND COMMIS- 
SION EXPOSED BY A PROTESTANT CRITIC. 

[From articles by Mr. Alpha Child, of Wateitown, N. Y., in tho Boston 
Transcript, Feb. 4, 1889.] 

Pupils taking up Swinton's " Outlines of the World's His- 
tory " are supposed to have become acquainted with United 
States history, from his books intended to precede the 
" Outlines " in the school course. This is his explanation 
why the share this country has had in the world's history 



193 

has no place in the supposed all-comprehending "Outlines," 
except in a few places where some allusion to it is unavoid- 
able through contact with European events. Mr. Swinton 
then starts out with his own idea of what history is, and, of 
course, what the method of instruction should be. He 
declares that in the higher schools it " should be to give the 
learner a general view, of human progress " ; to show him 
ft what have been the great steps in human progress ; the 
discoveries, . . . advances in thought, etc., that have carried 
forward civilization." He informs us that " it has to do with 
but one grand division of the human family, namely, the 
Caucasian or white race." After assuring the learner that 
" the Caucasian is the only truly historical race," Mr. Swin- 
ton confesses that " peoples outside the Caucasian have made 
some advances in civilization," and he instances the Chinese, 
Peruvians, and Mexicans, each simply by name, and with 
that he drops those three nations and their doings entirely 
out of account for the rest of his book, because, he says, 
" their civilization was stationary." The Japanese are like- 
wise ignored, although they had been in open intercourse 
with the world twenty years when the book was in prepara- 
tion, and had shown remarkable progress ; nor does a word 
appear of their extraordinary experience with European 
civilization three centuries ago. Of Egypt and Chaldea, 
too, Mr. Swinton says, " They grew up and remained in a 
great degree apart from the rest of the world, having no 
considerable influence on the main current of history," just 
as was the case, he might have added, with each and every 
other nation of antiquity, until Greece had got well along, 
and so have left out all the rest of them ; but, mindless of his 
own restricting qualifications, he soon inflicts upon the pupil 
the name and period of each of the twenty-six dynasties of 
Egypt, ending 332 B. C. Now, if there is anything Mr. 
, Swinton detests in the guise of teaching, it is "a mere biog- 



194 

raphy of kings or the record of battles and sieges, of dynas- 
ties and courts," and " an array of isolated facts and dates," 
which, he affirms, his book does not contain; yet open it 
where you may, and within twenty pages, one way or the 
other, you run into just such a dry registry as he has 
described. Begin on page 285, for instance, and see how 
you are rushed along from the Carlovingian kings through 
the Franconians, catching a glimpse of the Hohenstaufens 
and a touch of the headache on the way, until you fetch up 
against the Austrian branch of the Hapsburg tree and are 
swung off into the long reign of Frederick III., which, as 
Mr. Swinton says, "carries us through the Middle Ages," 
and very much out of breath. 

Go on eight pages farther, through sections of the reign- 
ing families of France, Germany, and England. He calls 
this passage "political outline"; it is little else than a cata- 
logue of kings ; this little else, however, gives the learner one 
remarkable piece of information — that " with the deposition 
by Parliament of Richard II., the Plantagenet line went 
out." Went out? How so? If those three Lancastrian 
kings who followed — the son, grandson, and great-grand- 
son of John of Ghent — were not as' regularly Plantagenets 
as Richard II., will Mr. Swinton, or any one of the thirty- 
two thousand Bostonians who are supposed abroad to have 
voted to restore his book to the schools, please explain why 
not? And the "roses" of the other color also; Richard 
III. was assuredly a lineal Plantagenet. 

But we must not yet lose sight of those nations of 
antiquity; for although Mr. Swinton introduces several of 
them to us, only to kick them down-stairs for not belonging 
to "the only truly historical race," he still holds the pupils' 
noses down upon the grindstone of antiquity until they are 
half-way through the book. And he does not allow them to 
suspect there is a single doubtful point in history, from the 



195 

deluge down, except where he says that "in the prehistoric 
age we hear of the Pelasgi, who seem to have been an Aryan 
race." He announces straightly his own views as to all 
other peoples being Aryan or not, with sublime disregard of 
everlastingly different theories. Out of all excusable pro- 
portion, the first part of his book is given to alleged origins, 
tribal offshoots, wars, migrations, conquests, bleudings, and 
mythical traditions of nationalities which, at their disappear- 
ance, had made no more " steps in human progress" than 
the Chinese, Japanese, Aztecs, or ancient Peruvians, all of 
whom the Boston school student may infer he should disdain 
to notice, because this book tells him "their civilization was 
stationary." Let me beg such of those students as may 
chance to read this to occupy some of their spare time perus- 
ing the works of one Prescott, deceased, a Bostonian, on 
the civilization and achievements of the ancient Mexicans 
and Peruvians ; and to acquaint themselves with John L. 
Stephens's archaeological researches in Central America and 
their results, and see if they do not find some ''outlines of 
history " as valuable as Mr. Swinton's information that 
Charlemagne "dined off four dishes, and of roast venison 
newly killed and served up to him on the spit," or that 
Oliver Cromwell had a Ions; nose. ("I will fight with him 
upon this theme until my eyelids will no longer wag"; for I 
have seen a cast of Cromwell's face, in the mint at Philadel- 
phia, and the nasal protuberance is nothing more than an 
ordinary one ; but this is a study by itself — the " outlines " 
of Cromwell's nose.) 

Because the Romans began by suckling a wolf and im- 
proved upon themselves till they were able to build tremen- 
dous aqueducts, should the history pupil be deprived of the 
means of judging for himself as to the progress the Peruvians 
must have made to construct aqueducts incomparably stu- 
pendous to those of Rome ? It can hardly be supposed they 



196 

entered upon their career tunnelling mountains of rock for 
aqueducts; perhaps they couldn't so much as find a she- 
wolf to begin with. The contributions to the world's his- 
tory from all the peoples of the entire American continent, 
past and present, are excluded from Swinton's " Outlines, "" 
except incidentally in a very few instances as already men- 
tioned. The eastern empire of Rome gets but little better 
attention, because, if we are to believe Mr. Swinton, its 
thousand years were devoid of progress ! But it is of no 
consequence that that empire preserved the learning of 
Greece and Rome through the Dark Ages ; that the code, 
which is the basis of European law at the present day, was 
established by Justinian ; that Justinian, through his con- 
quest of Italy, gave the first impulse to the growth of west- 
ern civilization ; that learned men from Constantinople, upon 
its capture by the Turks, were mainly instrumental in the 
revival of enlightenment throughout the West. More might 
be said of what the eastern empire did, taking " a general 
view of human progress," which we are told is the scope of 
the book. And where it tells the pupils that "the great 
feature of all the Oriental nations is their unprogressiveness," 
the teacher of the class should know enough to protest that 
the Phoenicians, who certainly were Orientals, were the 
world's pioneers in navigation, commerce, and the spreading 
of useful industries, and that through the Arabians we get 
most of our exact sciences. 



[From the Boston Transcript, Feb. 8, 1889.] 

Swinton's " Outlines " is a book of 487 pages. Its first 
200 pages, or thereabout, — except those devoted to Greece 
and Rome, where history is too plain for the wayfaring man 
to err, — are largely rilled with ethnological suppositions 
relative to various alleged branches of the Aryan language- 



197 

stock and their foggy career, set down as veritable history, 
with some apparent confusion of ideas as to the Aryan 
migration into Europe. It is not until the class has gone 
through with 232 pages of antiquity, more or less vague, 
that it reaches the beginning of the empire under Charle- 
magne, and not until he gets to page 305 does the pupil 
come to the year 1500. Keeping in view the compiler's 
statement that his plan is to show the learner " what have 
been the great steps in human progress, the discoveries, . . . 
advances in thought," and so on, " that have carried forward 
civilization," and knowing that all such development, except 
a few incipient conditions for it, has come about in the past 
four centuries, what can be thought of a "method of teach- 
ins;" that tries to crowd it all into the now remaining 182 
pages of the book? A little more than one third of it 'is 
made to cover all modern history, from the discovery of 
America to, and including, the Franco-German war. If 
anything like study of the work is done, with the number of 
other studies usually undertaken, a whole school year might 
be gone before a class could get within sight of the sixteenth 
century. 

Of necessity, therefore, the "general view of human prog- 
ress," during the only four centuries that have seen any 
human progress to speak of, has to be sparingly and insuffi- 
ciently given. "It is the brilliant figure of Spain that first 
attracts our attention at the beginning of modern history," 
says Mr. Swinton to his attentive pupils ; and directly there- 
upon he treats them to one of his favorite doses of royal 
relationships among the European courts four centuries ago 
to show who was Charles V. There is but a mere sugges- 
tion of the great overflow of the Spanish nationality into the 
New World, all the way from California to Patagonia ; and 
the series of revolutions in our country that terminated three 
centuries of Spanish and Portuguese domination on this con- 



198 

tinent, and erected a line of republics from Mexico to the 
Argentine, are apparently "crowded out for want of space," 
as the newspapers sometimes say. Anyway, so far as this 
book is concerned, the school pupil is cut off from any 
knowledge of those truly "great steps in human progress." 
The empire of Brazil — the nation having the largest contig- 
uous territory of all in the world except Russia and the 
United States — is not so much as named, I believe; nor is 
the continent of Australia. Ten pages having been occu- 
pied with Assyria, there is room in the modern-history sec- 
tion for only ten lines to tell of the British conquest of India, 
bringing a hundred million people in contact with the forces 
"that have carried forward civilization." The settlement of 
Australia and New Zealand by "the only truly historical 
race," adding so widely to the civilized area of the globe, is 
not noticed at all. The gold discoveries of California and 
Australia, and their turning to those lands such streams of 
civilization as cannot be pictured elsewhere in modern his- 
tory, are other events and movements of which those who 
learn from Swinton's "Outlines" are left in ignorance. But 
look back over the pages of time before Christ and after, 
and see the proportion of them occupied with comparative 
nothings and nobodies that had no more to do with "ad- 
vances in thought that have carried forward civilization" 
than all the eclipses of the moon in the Silurian period. 

The reign of James I. of England " was not marked by 
what are called great events," says this school historian. It 
has been commonly supposed that the production of an 
authorized version of the Bible, by translation, was some- 
thing that helped to "carry forward civilization," but no allu- 
sion to that work can be discovered. A page or so is cov- 
ered with talk about the ungainly personal appearance and 
mental obliquities of that sovereign, but not a word appears 
of the one achievement that alone makes his reign historical. 



199 

The South Sea Bubble gets a good description, but if John 
Law's old swindle is an outline of history, why not " Old 
Hutch's " wheat corner of last August ? The rectifying of the 
calendar was a much more important adjustment than many 
things that are duly explained, and it was effected solely by 
and for "the only historical race"; but when the pupil has 
left school and sees the puzzling letters O. S. or N. S. he 
will know nothing of the change from old style to new by 
anything Swinton's " Outlines" have told him. 

Turning for a moment to the primary one of the two histo- 
ries of the United States, by the same educator, which are 
supposed to have educated the pupil in regard to this country 
before he starts upon the more extensive " Outlines," I do not 
turn six leaves before I tind it stated that the first steamer 
to cross the Atlantic was the " Savannah," from New York to 
Liverpool. It is not a great matter, but if it is worth teach- 
ing it is worth stating correctly ; the pioneer steamer, the 
'" Savannah," sailed from Savannah to Liverpool ; see " Life of 
Eobert Fulton," by Thomas W. Knox ; G. P. Putnam's Sons, 
New York, 1886, page 321. A few pages more and it says 
that Washington died in the "last month of the last centuiy." 
If Mr. Swinton were to begin with the first year of the first 
century, and count carefully to its last year, he would find 
the first century ended with the close of the year 100 ; and 
therefore the last month of the eighteenth century was 
December of the year 1800, and not December of 1799, the 
month of Washington's death. This belongs to an old, old 
class of blunders, demonstrated and corrected a thousand 
times ; and for any person to full into it shows a loose way 
of thinking. Telling of the Fourth of July, 1776, he says, 
" On that day this countiy became a nation " ; and, when he 
gets to the war of 1812, it is considerably queer for him to 
say, " The United States were not twenty years old before 



200 

they had to go to war with England a second time." This, 
too, is only a question of arithmetic. One more of the 
many flaws in these earlier histories, as in the "Outlines." 
The documentary contentions and arguments that have 
broken out at long intervals in support and refutation of the 
alleged Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence (beginning 
in 1819, when John Adams and Thomas Jefferson first heard of 
it and expressed their incredulity of the Mecklenburg story) 
have left most people rather hopeless of ever learning the 
truth about it. But Mr. Swinton would not have our youth 
grow up to inherit a bothersome doubt upon any subject ; He 
gives full credit to the Mecklenburgers' claim and no intima- 
tion of its ever having been disputed. 

Not half the material Swinton's " Outlines " furnishes for 
showing strange things in history teaching has been used ; 
enough has been shown, I think, to place the book within 
the application of the doctrine laid down by the Transcript, 
and quoted at the outset of this article ; and that doctrine 
struck at simply one paragraph in another book, which, 
"being false, it is not a fit text -book for American youth." 
But not only should false statements condemn a text-book ; 
statements so made as to lead to false inferences are as bad ; 
so is teaching anything as an historical fact, which is, instead, 
a matter of historic doubt and dispute. Omissions of im- 
portant matters and heedless blunders are but little less 
reprehensible. All these, and several of each, are counts in 
the indictment. Anderson's History may contain as many 
or more, and worse faults ; I know nothing of that. I know, 
at least, four other books in the public schools in the United 
States that o-i V e out as much misinformation as Swinton's 
"Outlines." A well-informed and painstaking teacher may 
rectify much that is amiss in the "Outlines," but that is not 
to the credit of the book. It may be the best manual of 
history for school use now in print. If so, it is owing largely 



201 

to the remissness of the press in not watching and examining 
school-books as it does other publications, and it is a signifi- 
cant commentary on the ceaseless and critical attention be- 
stowed by educators upon systems of preparation and methods 
of teaching, while neglecting to notice whether the informa- 
tion imparted is correct or not. It is not enough that teach- 
ing be skilfully done ; what is taught should be true. 

Alpha Child. 
Watertown, N. Y., January, 1889. 



THE TEACHING OF HISTORY. 

[From the Christian Begister, Nov. 8, 1888.] 

The question how history shall be taught is one on which 
educators have had a good deal to say. In our progressive 
and most representative colleges, the method of studying it 
has been practically revolutionized in the last twenty-five 
years. We are more concerned now with the question as it 
relates to the study of history in our public schools. Much 
of the recent controversy has revolved around this point. 
Dr. Mayo revives it in his article in another column. 

1. We agree with Dr. Mayo that the well-attested facts 
of history must be taught, not its fictions, not merely its 
traditions, but its facts. Geology, for instance, is one form 
of the study of history. It is the history of the physical 
development of our planet. In teaching it, let the facts be 
fully presented, and the causes, so far as they are revealed, 
without reference to any fond traditions which they may 
dispel. It is not, for instance, the business of the public- 
school teacher, in conducting a class in geology, to reconcile 
its facts with the cosmology of the Bible. Genesis teaches 
that the world was made in six days. Geology teaches that 
it has taken millions of years. It is this latter truth, sup- 



202 

ported as it is by myriads of facts, that the teacher has to 
present. If asked to explain the discrepancy between Gen- 
esis and geology, he may as well frankly tell the scholar that 
it is out of his province. 

In a similar way, the teacher of astronomy, without refer- 
ence to the prejudice of Brother Jasper, must teach his 
scholars that the earth moves on its axis. It is a doctrine 
which may conflict with the theological teaching of a few 
centuries ago. With this the teacher has nothing to do. If 
the scholar is properly impressed with the idea that the earth 
moves, he will probably conclude that the theologians who 
originally doubted it were mistaken. For this conclusion, 
the theologians, not the teacher, must be responsible. Or, 
if he he a teacher of physiology, he must teach his scholars 
the fact of the circulation of the blood. Here, again, he 
has to do with physiology, not with theology. 

It is the advantage of teaching mathematics that its truth 
can be demonstrated. The indubitable facts of science can 
also he appealed to in support of its conclusions. If a boy 
doubts the circulation of the blood, the teacher with a micro- 
scope can show it to him in a frog's tongue. A single 
geological excursion would' render it impossible to believe 
that the earth was made in six days : and the proof that the 
earth is round and revolves on its axis can be demonstrated 
to his reason, if not to his sight. But, when we enter the 
field of human history — the history of kingdoms, nations, 
revolutions, religions, the growth ot' society, the develop- 
ment of opinions — we enter a different field. The facts of 
history here are not always so tangible. They are some- 
times vague and illusive. Motives and actions are complex, 
evidence is conflicting, document.- are not always veracious. 
Here, again, we may say with Dr. Mayo, "Teach the facts 
oi' history*'; but the important question arises. What facts? 
Especially, what facts shall we present in the very brief 



203 

abridgment of history to which the course in the public 
schools is confined? A great deal of mischief may be done 
simply with bald facts. A teacher may claim that the sep- 
arate facts he is presenting to his scholars are true ; but, 
when we come to examine them, we may see that they are 
facts out of their proper relations. There are some subjects 
which cannot be treated adequately unless they are treated 
broadly. Indeed, it is more accurate and more satisfactory 
to say that we are to teach the truth of history instead of 
simply its facts. In the truth of history, as in the truth of 
geology, a vast number of facts and influences may need to 
be considered. 

The recent discussion in regard to indulgences, which sm:;- 
gests Dr. Mayo's article, will readily furnish an illustration. 
The subject of indulgences is introduced in a public-school 
text-book. A scholar who is not satisfied with the definition 
given asks his teacher. The teacher replies in effect that in- 
dulgences are permissions to commit sin, and examination 
papers show that this impression has been made upon the 
minds of his pupils. The indignation of a portion of the 
religious community is justly excited. But here the Protes- 
tant rises, and tells us that the facts of history must be 
taught. Yes ; but we demand that they must be taught 
accurately. The definition of the teacher was erroneous, 
and the definition in the book which excited the question 
was partial and incomplete. That the shameful practice of 
selling indulgences by pardon-hawkers, like Tetzel and 
others, aroused Huss and Luther to protest, and was thus 
the exciting cause of the Reformation, cannot be denied. 
That is a fact of history ; but there are other facts that need 
to be told with it, in order to present the truth of history. 
And one of these facts, which ought not to be separated 
from the other, is that the Christian Church never author- 
itatively taught that an indulgence was a permission to 



204 

commit sin, that its doctrine was that of the remission of 
temporal penalties after sins had been confessed and re- 
pented of. The abases consequent on the easy corruption of 
this doctrine only make it more necessary to bring out the 
original attitude of the Church itself. 

Lea, in his " History of the Inquisition," treats the subject 
of indulgences very fully and without partiality for the 
Roman Catholic side. If any one needs a justification of 
the origin of Protestantism, he may find it in these volumes. 
Yet Lea shows us how often the Church itself had protested 
against the abuses perpetrated in its name. The average 
Protestant opinion is that IIuss and Luther were the first to 
protest against these practices. But Lea says : — 

"Alexander III., about 1175, expressed his disapproval of 
these corruptions." (Vol. I., page 41.) "Already, in 1215, 
the great Council of Lateran inveighs bitterly against these 
practices. ... As early as 1261, the Council of Mainz can 
hardly find words strong enough to denounce the pestilent 
sellers of indulgences, whose knavish tricks excite the hatred 
of all men, who spend their filthy gains in vile debauchery, 
and who so mislead the faithful that confession is neglected 
on the ground that sinners have purchased forgiveness of 
their sins." (Vol. I., page 46.) 

Nor must it be forgotten that the history of indulgences 
runs clear back to the fourth century. 

While we are confident that a full and complete study of 
the subject of indulgences, with all the corruptions which 
have attended it, will justify on the ground of reason and 
ethics those who refuse to accept it, yet we contend that a 
public school is no place for the vindication of the Protestant 
position. Protestants may be perfectly confident from their 
stand-point that a certain view of indulgences is right. On 
the other hand, more than fifty per cent of our school chil- 
dren belong to families who take a very different view of the 
.facts of history. This is a subject which cannot be demon- 



205 

strated like the circulation in a frog's tongue ; it is a matter 
of evidence and opinion. It must be referred to the larger 
field of ecclesiastical history, and Protestants have nothing 
to lose by leaving it there. 

Let us for a moment put the shoe on the Protestant foot, 
and see just where it pinches. This discussion has had 
reference to the causes of the Reformation. Suppose now 
we look at some of the results of the Reformation. 

Rev. Dr. Philip Schaff, of the Union Theological Semi- 
nary, New York, is a Protestant historian. His orthodoxy 
is not questioned. In the sixth volume of his " Ecclesias- 
tical History," just published, Dr. Schaff has the following- 
passage : 

"The fact is undeniable that the Reformation in Germany 
was accompanied and followed by Antinomian tendencies 
and a degeneracy of public morals. It rests not only on 
the hostile testimonies of Romanists and Separatists, but 
Luther and Melanchthon themselves often bitterly com- 
plained in their later years of the abuse of the liberty of the 
gospel and the sad state of morals in Wittenberg and 
throughout Saxony." 

Prof. George P. Fisher, of Yale, in his volume on "The 
History of the Christian Church," referring to the abuses 
which succeeded the Reformation, says, "In the Nether- 
lands, in the time of Charles V., Anabaptists were guilty of 
offences against decency and morality, which were repaid 
with savage penalties." (Page 425.) Again, referring to 
the Familists : " They made a stir in England in the reign 
of Elizabeth. Some of them are allowed to have been pure 
and devout. Others were accused of lax, licentious prac- 
tices, — the result of a mystical Antinomiauism." (Page 
427.) 

Hase, in his "History of the Christian Church," speaking 
of the reaction of individualism which followed the Refor- 
mation, says.: 



206 

" These Anabaptists, who made their first appearance' 
at Zwickau and Wittenberg (1521), were nearly all put 
to death in the Peasants' War ; but, in almost every part 
of the country, a class of enthusiasts resembling them, but 
very unlike each other in moral and religious character, 
became the pioneers and freebooters of the Reformation. 
Some of them were persons who had renounced the world, 
and others were the slaves of their own lusts. To some of 
them, marriage was only an ideal religious communion of 
spirit. To others, it was resolved into a general community 
of wives. . . . They justified themselves by isolated pas- 
sages of the Bible for overthrowing all existing relations in 
social life. In their assumed character of men moved by 
the Holy Ghost, they were of course exalted above all law, 
and frequently exhibited a spirit of rebellion against every 
kind of government." (Page 431.) 

Mosheim gives us a detailed picture of the " scenes of 
violence, tumult, and sedition that were exhibited in Hol- 
land " by what he calls "this odious tribe." 

It cannot be denied that the reaction against the authority 
of the Pope, and also the proclamation of Luther's doctrine 
of justification by faith, had a great deal to do in exciting a 
fanatical and infuriated rabble, who became the anarchists of 
that day. Even Huss was compelled to mourn the want of 
morality of many of his adherents. 

Now, if Protestants may demand that the cause of the 
Reformation shall be ascribed in our school-books to the cor- 
ruption of the Christian Church, why shall not Catholics 
demand that the corruption of the Christian Church, which 
was one remit of the Reformation, shall be inserted in the 
same book? One is a fact of history quite as much as the 
other. If one is to be taught, in all fairness the other 
should be taught also. But we imagine how many Protes- 
tants would wince at having Dr. Schaff 's statement inserted 
in Mr. Swinton's book, declaring that "the fact is undeniable 
that the Reformation in Germany was followed ... by a 
degeneracy of public morals." 



207 

If such a statement should be inserted in a school-book, 
~we should be among the first to protest, on the ground that 
this statement, though a fact of history, does not present 
the whole truth of history. Is it fair to state the terrible 
abuses of Luther's doctrine without statins; the sense in 
which he held it, without making the fact known that he 
himself protested against these very perversions ? Would 
it be fair to describe the moral degeneracy following the 
Reformation without also describing the grand and inesti- 
mable results which also flowed from it? Not all the Anabap- 
tists even were fanatical and immoral. One cannot do 
justice to this sect without recognizing the purity of char- 
acter and nobility of the Mennonites who grew from it. 

But more important than the teaching of the simple facts 
of history, for which Dr. Mayo contends, is the development 
of the historic spirit. The teacher who was asked by a 
scholar what an indulgence meant, had an excellent oppor- 
tunity. Instead of giving an erroneous and one-sided defi- 
nition, he had an opportunity to impress upon his pupils that 
here is a question concerning which Protestants and Catholics 
differ, that it was not his business to decide debatable points 
for his pupils. Or he might have asked his Catholic pupils 
to get from their religious advisers their own definition of 
indulgences. Or he might have referred them to the most 
prominent Catholic and Protestant writers, and allowed them 
to form their own opinions. Far more valuable than pour- 
ing into their minds mutilated and fragmentary facts of 
history would be the development of this judicial, investi- 
gating spirit. A teacher of tact and fairness might have 
made an impression of tolerance and impartiality worth more 
to the pupil than a ton of Swinton's one-sided books. The 
best work that is now done in our colleges is that in which 
historic themes are assigned to students, with copious refer- 
ence to authors on both sides, with the expectation that the 



208 

student himself shall sift, analyze, compare, and adjudicate. 
It may be too early in the public schools to do this to any 
large extent. But it may be done to some extent ; and the 
more, the better. What a child should commit to memory 
is simply the events of history. The study of causes, mo- 
tives, and influences may properly be referred to a riper 
period. 

Finally, we remind our readers that a book intended for a 
text-book in the public schools must be tried by tests which 
may not be applied to a book for the individual student. 
Catholics, Protestants, Jews, and children of all nations 
gather in these schools. A book which does not carefully 
avoid all religious and national partiality ought to be care- 
fully excluded as a source of strife and division. 



THE DOCTRINE OF INDULGENCES. 

[Extract from editorial in the Boston Advertiser, of May 12, 1888, under the 

above caption.] 

Finally, wholly apart from the merits of the present case 
[that of Mr. Travis, teacher of history in the English High 
School] , which cannot be decided until more facts are known, 
it is well to emphasize two things. One is, that during the 
Middle Ages, in times of gross ignorance, violence, and moral 
degradation, there grew up many practices in connection 
with the Roman Catholic Church which never had the sanc- 
tion of the Church authorities, and which Popes and Councils 
endeavored to reform. The doctrine of indulgences was 
perverted along with other doctrines. . . . But the uniform 
testimony of the most eminent Protestant authorities of the 
present day is in accord with the words quoted in another 
column from that distinguished church historian, Prof.. 
Fisher, of Yale College: "To say that the Roman Catholic 



209 

Church has ever taught that the forgiveness of sins can be' 
bought with money is an atrocious slander." If Mr. Travis 
has taught the pupils of the English High School in Boston, 
as an historical fact or a theological argument, that in the 
doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church an "indulgence"' is a 
permission to commit sin, he is to be severely blamed. His- 
toricalfy, the statement is not true ; theologically, the topic 
is forbidden in the public schools. 



INDULGENCES AGAIN. 
[From the Boston Daily Advertiser, May 16, 1888.] 
In stating on Saturday last the doctrine of "indulgences " 
as taught by the Roman Catholic Church, we simply sum- 
marized the definition of that doctrine which the authorities 
of that Church have given, and which is to be found in all 
their official utterances on the subject. In so doing we 
called attention to certain facts which are as well authenticated 
as any facts recorded in history. There is no doubt among 
competent scholars concerning the main points at issue. To 
cite all the authorities in proof of our statements, would be 
to present a catalogue of all the standard books on church 
history. But for the satisfaction of any persons who may 
desire to look into the question for themselves, and in reply 
to the letter of an intelligent correspondent, we cite a few 
authorities which can be readily referred to. The "Library 
of Universal Knowledge," Vol. VII., page 876, states that, 

"Indulgence, in Roman Catholic theology, means a remis- 
sion by church authority to a repentant sinner of the temporal 
punishment, which, in the Catholic theory, remains due after 
the sin and its eternal punishment have been remitted." 

The "Encyclopedia Britannica," Vol. XII., page 847, says : 

" It must be carefully borne in mind that, in Roman Catholic 
orthodoxy, indulgence is never absolutely gratuitous, and that 



210 

those can only, in any circumstances, validly receive it who 
are in full communion with the Church, and have resorted to 
the sacrament of penance, in which alone, after due contri- 
tion and confession, provision is made for the remission of 
the graver penalty of sin." 

The " American Encyclopedia," Vol. IX., page 256, says : 

"In no supposable case can indulgence be a pardon for the 
guilt of sin." 

The foregoing are standard works of general information, 
of undisputed authority. The plan of their editors has been 
to have each topic treated by a writer who could speak as 
an expert upon it. The above citations show conclusively 
what an indulgence is as held and taught by the Roman 
Catholic Church. With most people these quotations will 
be accepted as answering the question, " What is an indul- 
gence?" But if any one wishes to insist that we cannot 
trust those who teach a doctrine to tell what that doctrine is, 
we would refer him to a brief list of standard works prepared 
by evangelical Protestants, and indorsed by the most learned 
men of every Protestant sect, all of which works confirm in 
every particular the statement of the Advertiser. 

The "Dictionary of Religious Knowledge," prepared by 
Dr. Lyman Abbott, a learned Congregationalist, with the 
assistance of Dr. T. J. Conant, whom all Baptists revere as 
one of their foremost scholars, is a work relied on by tens of 
thousands of Sunday-school teachers. This book says, page 
459: 

" Indulgences, in the Roman Catholic Church, are not a 
permission to sin, but a remission of what are termed the 
temporal penalties of sin." 

The "Religious Encyclopedia" is a recent work prepared 
originally by Prof. Herzog, of Germany, and edited in this 
country by Dr. Philip Schaff, a Presbyterian, and chairman 



211 

of the American branch of the Bible revision committee 
which prepared its new version of the Scriptures. Asso- 
ciated with Dr. Schaff in the editing of the encyclopedia are 
more than one hundred Protestant clergymen, mostly doc- 
tors of divinity, many of them professors in colleges and 
theological seminaries, and altogether representing every 
Protestant denomination of any note in Europe and America. 
In Vol. II, page 1076, of this work, the student will find the 
subject of indulgences treated, and he will find not one word 
in support of the assertion that an indulgence is a permission 
to commit sin. 

Not' to weary the reader, we will cite but one more 
authority. The Methodist denomination will gladly assent 
to the remark that no class of Protestants are more con- 
scientiously and vigorously opposed to Catholicism than are 
the followers of John Wesley. McClintock and Strong's 
"Biblical Cyclopedia" is everywhere a standard authority 
with clergymen and laymen of that church, having been 
compiled throughout under the direction of the two eminent 
Methodist divines whose names are on the title-page, with 
the co-operation of the most learned men in all the principal 
denominations. The article on indulgences is on pages 563- 
568, of Vol. IV. It deals with the subject from every point 
of view, historical, doctrinal, practical, and scriptural. The 
entire treatment is in the nature of the strongest possible 
truthful opposition to the Catholic Church. Yet, from first 
to last, McClintock and Strong make no statement which 
gives any color to what Prof. Fisher calls "the atrocious 
slander" involved in the traditional accusation. 



212 

THE PUBLIC-SCHOOL QUESTION. 

BY CHARLES KENDALL ADAMS. 

The public-school question, as it now confronts us, is un- 
doubtedly|one of very great importance, and the recent agi- 
tation in Boston, consequent upon the exclusion of S win ton's 
"Outlines of the World's History" from the public schools, 
affords an appropriate occasion for a careful inspection of the 
ground on which the friends of the public-school system are 
ready to take and defend their position. Such a survey 
necessarily involves the discussion of .a number of questions. 
There are, doubtless, some who distrust the assumption that 
the public-school system is better adapted to serve the in- 
terests of the community and of the State than a system of 
parochial schools would be ; but, in spite of this fact, it is 
probably safe to assume that the schools are as permanently 
established as any other part of our institutions. The ques- 
tion, then, as to whether our public schools shall be dis- 
pensed with, is not one in regard to which there can be any 
profitable discussion. But as soon as we come to an exam- 
ination of details, we find room for a difference of opinion. 
A vast number of questions arise : some of them concerning 
organization, others concerning qualifications of teachers, 
and still others concerning the subjects to be taught. 
Nearly all of these questions are amenable to settlement in 
the ordinary methods that must be applied to administrative 
details. But the question that now confronts us is one that 
calls for a different manner of treatment. It involves, not 
simply the subordinate matter of efficiency, but the far more 
fundamental one of the object to be attained. Is the object 
of the public schools the teaching of religious truth? We 
should probably all agree to answer the question in the nega- 
tive, excepting so far as such teaching may be necessary for 



213 

the building up of that form of character which we deem 
essential to the most successful fulfilment of the public du- 
ties of life. Is the teaching of religion in any form an indis- 
pensable part of the child's public education? If it is not, 
it follows, of course, that as soon as any considerable objec- 
tion is made to it, we may dispense with it from our schools 
without any special embarrassment. If, on the other hand, 
it is an indispensable part of the most successful education, 
then another question arises, namely, whether it should be 
made a part of education in our public schools, or whether 
it should be left to be provided for in some other way. The 
question then narrows itself to this : Shall the teaching of 
religion, in so far as it is to be taught at all, be provided for 
in our public schools, or shall it be left to the voluntary 
efforts of private schools, churches, families, and individuals? 
It is undoubtedly going too far to say that this country 
was founded on the idea of political and religious freedom. 
The Puritans were not tolerant of what they regarded as 
heresy. To use Franklin's figure, we may say that they 
were strenuous believers in their own " doxy," and that they 
were equally strenuous disbelievers in the " doxy " of any- 
body else. No one of them had the courage and wit to say, 
with Sydney Smith, that he never should be perfectly happy 
till he had dined oft' a roasted Quaker ; but that seems to 
have been about the way very many of them felt. Nor was this 
feeling confined to New England. There was a kindred in- 
tolerance in the South. The settlers of this country were 
undoubtedly advancing toward religious freedom ; but they 
had yet a long road to travel before they could reach the 
goal. But, nevertheless, there was but one ending to the 
road on which they had entered. As the country came to 
be filled up with differing peoples and sects, there was abso- 
lutely no other way than either to live in interminable dis- 
cord, or to agree to live in absolute toleration and peace. 



214 

Our forefathers wisely chose the latter alternative. And so,, 
when the State Constitutions and the national Constitution 
came to be adopted, the only logical course was to exclude 
entirely from the domain of political and governmental con- 
sideration all questions of religious profession and belief. 
In the Constitution of the United States, and in the Consti- 
tutions of the individual States, laws discriminating against 
any particular form of belief or disbelief are, as a rule, pro- 
hibited. In general, it may be said that ever since the for- 
mation of the government, persons of any form of religious 
belief, and persons of any form of disbelief, have been 
equally eligible to any of the political offices in the gift of 
government or the people. This is tantamount to a consti- 
tutional declaration, or at least admission, that no one form 
of belief or disbelief is essential to the successful perform- 
ance of the duties of any political office. If not essential to 
an officer, still less would any particular form of belief seem 
to be necessary to a private citizen. 

This line of reasoning brings us to the obvious necessity 
of erecting a barrier against any obligatory religious instruc- 
tion whatever. Indeed, such instruction can logically be 
required only in a State which officially recognizes some par- 
ticular form of religious belief. Our constitutional limita- 
tions on this subject, therefore, are but the natural expres- 
sion of positive necessity. 

We are brought still more obviously to the same conclu- 
sion in another way. Even. if we were to admit the neces- 
sity of teaching some form of religious truth in our schools, 
the question would at once confront us as to what form we 
should teach. And the moment the question is raised we 
are brought face to nice with the fact that in our body politic 
there is no one set of men authorized to answer it. Shall a 
majority answer it? But there is no way in which a majority 
can possibly perform so complicated an act as to exercise dis- 



215 

criminating judgment upon the countless details of a great 
body of religious doctrine. But even if it were claimed 
that such a judgment could be exercised by chosen represent- 
atives, there would still be the embarrassing fact that there 
are a hundred forms of belief ; in other words, that there 
would be a hundred tickets in the field at the same election, 
and on the same question. Either the question would have 
to be stripped of all those details which constitute the char- 
acteristics of the different religious denominations, and thus 
be reduced to a question of simple morality, or it would be 
absolutely necessary that a hundred questions should be sub- 
mitted at once, and, consequently, that the right to decide 
between them should be conferred on a mere plurality. But 
a plurality is often a minority. If a mere plurality were 
given the privilege of deciding such a question, the inevita- 
ble result would ensue that, occasionally at least, a minority 
would have the privilege of enforcing obnoxious doctrines 
upon the majority. Would such a result be tolerated? In 
a community where a plurality, let us say, are Unitarians, 
would Trinitarians consent to have their children taught doc- 
trines that are sharply opposed to the Trinity ? Would Prot- 
estants submit to have their children taught the doctrines 
of Catholics merely because Catholics happened, in a given 
district or city, to be more numerous than any other religious 
body? The answer is too obvious to require hesitation. 

But even if we were to allow the matter to be determined 
by a clear majority, we should not be released from logical 
difficulties. However it may have been during the colonial 
period, it is certainly true that ever since we became a 
united government under the Constitution we have persist- 
ently and systematically denied to a majority the right to 
impose any particular form of religious belief upon a minor- 
ity. To demand that this fundamental principle, which has, 
in fact, become a part of the bone and fibre of our people r 



216 
» 

should be set aside, is simply to ask our civilization to face 
about and march in the opposite direction ; for if there is 
anything which the civilization of the last three hundred 
years has been saying in louder tones than anything else, it 
is that a majority has no right to force its religious beliefs 
on a minority. This carries with it also the postulate that 
no one man has a right to enforce his beliefs on any one of 
his fellow-men. Just as truly it follows that no one man, or 
body of men, has a right to enforce certain beliefs upon the 
children of other men. And unless we hold that, when we 
elect a school board, we give them religious as well as edu- 
cational supervision over our children, it follows that neither 
school board nor teacher has any right to impose, as an obli- 
gation, any particular form of religious belief on any pupil. 

Any other position than this, besides being illogical, must 
result in inextricable confusion. Indeed, any other doctrine 
than this cannot fail ultimately to break up our public- 
school system. Any other doctrine would give to a Protes- 
tant community, for example, the right to teach its own 
beliefs in regard to transubstantiation, and indulgences, 
and the confessional ; and such teaching would, of course, 
drive all Catholics out of the schools. In a Catholic com- 
munity the opposite party would be driven out, but the gen- 
eral result would be the same. Disaster must follow such a 
policy, simply for the reason that, if there is any one thing 
to which a man will not submit, it is to have his children 
taught religious doctrines which he believes to be at once 
false and pernicious. It is evident that so long as this is the 
case, the only possible way for parents who differ from one 
another on religious subjects, is either to have nothing what- 
ever to do with one another in the matter of schools, or for 
each to withdraw absolutely from the schools those doctrines 
that are offensive to the other. The first means the abandon- 
ment of our public schools, as a system, and the substitu- 



217 

tion of private schools in their places ; the second means the 
redaction of our public schools to a purely secular basis. 

Those who agree with the positions thus set forth will 
have no difficulty in applying them to the solution of the 
dispute now raging in Boston. The point at issue is not a 
mere question as to the historic accuracy of Swinton's 
account of the Reformation ; it is, whether the account 
given has a color which may reasonably be regarded as inac- 
curate and offensive by the parents of Catholic children. 
While it might not be easy to point out a single positive mis- 
statement in Swinton's narrative, the general impression 
inevitably left on the pupil's mind is one of strong bias in 
opposition to the Catholic Church, and in favor of Luther. 
It may tell the truth, but it does not tell the whole truth ; 
and this is equivalent to saying that it tells a partial truth, 
and presents it in such a way as at least to have the effect of 
a partial falsehood. It preaches the Protestant doctrine ; it 
omits to preach the Catholic doctrine. To any one who has 
received his knowledge of the Reformation solely from that 
combination of careless scholarship and slovenly enthusiasm 
known as D'Aubigne's "History of the Reformation," this 
statement may seem hardly correct ; but every one who has 
looked more carefully into the history of this period knows 
that there is a side of the question of altogether another 
color. For example, Luther was so far from condemning 
indulgences that the seventy-first of his famous ninety-five 
theses pronounced a curse upon any one who should ques- 
tion their truth or value. Then again, six months after the 
posting of the theses, he wrote to the Pope in these sub- 
missive terms : 

"Most Holy Father, I cast myself at the feet of Your 
Holiness, with all that I am and all that I have. Give life, 
take it away ; call, recall ; approve, reprove ; your voice is 
that of Christ, who dwells in you, and speaks by your lips. 
If I have deserved death, I am ready to die." 



218 

'It was on this submission of his case that Luther was tried 
and condemned. It is, of course, easy for us to say that 
he ought not to have been condemned ; but it is evident that 
by the attitude Luther took, and held, up to the time of his 
condemnation, he laid himself open to the charge of break- 
ing with the authorit} 7 of the Church, simply because the 
Church condemned him. And this is, in substance, what 
Catholic historians have generally taught. They hold that 
what Luther did was substantially what the well-known law- 
yer did who said that when he was beaten there was only one 
of two courses open to him, either to appeal or to damn the 
court. The Catholic doctrine, in substance, is that Luther 
could not appeal from the decision of the papal bull, and 
that, therefore, he resorted to the other alternative. That 
this view of the case is believed to be the correct one by a 
great many honest minds, there is no doubt whatever ; and 
to compel a person who does take this view of the case to 
send his children to a school, or to be taxed for a school, 
where the Protestant view, and the Protestant view alone, is- 
taught, is as unjustifiable and absurd as it would be to force 
Protestants into a similar position, if at some time the Cath- 
olics should get the upper hand, and the tables should be 
turned. And, if under such circumstances, Protestants 
would not submit, it is simply rank injustice to demand that 
Catholics shall submit, simply because the power at present 
happens to be in Protestant hands. Thus we are forced to 
the conclusion that in our public schools we must give to our 
instruction no more of theological color than we give to our 
courts and legislatures. The responsibility of all religious 
instruction, if we are to preserve a harmonious support of 
our institutions, must be left to the churches, to the families, 
and to voluntary individual effort. And there it may be left 
with entire safety. 

THE END. 



219 



CATHOLIC INDIAN MISSIONS. 

''Damnable falsehood" is Mr. Cooke's characterization of cer- 
tain statements of Sadlier. This is a sonorous phrase, but exple- 
tives are not proofs. The evidence of the falsity of the two state- 
ments quoted on page 101, from Sadlier's " History of the United 
States," is, Mr. Cooke tells us, "known to many intelligent per- 
sons." Among these " many intelligent persons," Mr. Cooke him- 
self, no doubt, stands foremost, and the others are presumably 
those familiar friends of Mr. Cooke, his " unbiased historians." 
Their excess of knowledge recalls the keen-edged remark of a pop- 
ular American humorist, who says, "It is better not to know so 
much than to know so many things that are not so." 

The two statements cited from Sadlier's " History" are neither 
damnable nor an} 7 other kind of falsehoods ; the}' are the sober truth 
of history, and to call them "damnable falsehoods" is to betray 
crass ignorance or something worse. The first statement, that "the 
only systematic and successful attempts to civilize and Christianize 
the Indians were made by Catholic missionaries," is sustained by 
historical authorities, whose testimon} 7 cannot be shaken by Mr. 
Cooke's uninstructed and misinstructed pen. These authorities 
show that wherever a Catholic colony was planted on this continent 
systematic efforts were at once begun and persistently continued to 
Christianize and civilize the native tribes. That these were the 
"only" systematic successful attempts is well known. Many non- 
Catholic religious bodies also made efforts to evangelize the 
Indians, but those efforts were neither comprehensive nor perma- 
nent ; compared with the early, extensive, well-oryanized, and per- 
manent Catholic missions they cannot be regarded as sj'stematic, 
and judged by their final results they were certainly not successful. 
To quote only a few writers, of whom Mr. Cooke may perhaps 
have heard, there is Washington Irving, who says : 

"All persons who are in the least familiar with the early history 
of the West, know with what pure and untiring zeal the Catholic 
missionaries pursued the work of conversion among the savages. 
Before a Virginian had crossed the Blue Ridge, and while the 
Connecticut was still the extreme frontier of New England, more 
than one man whose youth had been passed among the warm val- 
leys of Languedoc had explored the wilds of Wisconsin, and 
caused the lryrnu of Catholic praise to rise from the prairies of llli- 



220 

nois. The Catholic priest went even before the soldier and the 
trader ; from lake to lake, from river to river, the Jesuits pressed 
on unresting, and, with a power which no other Christians have 
exhibited, won to their faith the warlike Miamis and luxurious 
Illinois." 

Rev. Mr. Kip, a Protestant minister, bears his testimony to the 
Catholic missionaries and their success in these terms : 

"How few of their number died the common death of all men ! 
But did these things stop the progress of the Jesuits? The sons 
of Loyola never retreated. The mission they founded in a tribe 
ended only with the extinction of the tribe itself. Their lives were 
made up of fearless devotedness and heroic self-sacrifice. Though 
sorrowing for the dead, they pressed forward at once to occupy 
their places, and, if needs be, share their fate." 

" Long before the consecration of Plymouth Rock," observes 
Mr. Bartlett, an official of the United States government, " the 
religion of Christ had been made known to the Indians of New 
Mexico ; the Rocky Mountains were scaled ; and the Gila and 
Colorado rivers, which in our day are attracting so much interest 
as novelties, were passed again and again. The broad continent, 
too, to cross which, with all the advantages we possess, requires a 
whole season, was traversed from ocean to ocean, before Raleigh, 
or Smith, or the Pilgrim Fathers had touched our shores." 

Miss Harriet Martineau and Mrs. Jameson, both Protestant 
women of note, have also borne witness to the superior effective- 
ness of Catholic missions among the Indians. Judge Hall, of 
Cincinnati, a Protestant, has this to say: 

" The French Catholics, at a very early period, were remarkably 
successful in gaining converts, and conciliating the confidence and 
affection of the tribes ; while Protestants, similarly situated, were 
bloodthirsty and rapacious." 

Berkeley, the famous Protestant Bishop, writing from actual 
observation on this continent, said : 

"The Spanish missionaries in the South, and the French in the 
North, are making such a progress as may one day spread the 
religion of* Rome throughout all the savage nations in America." 

It has been truly observed on this forecast of Bishop Berkeley 
that " in South America the work which he dreaded is done and if 
in North America they failed to convert all the savage tribes, it 
was only because England massacred both them and their flocks, 
till she left them none to convert." 



221 

The enduring success of the Catholic missions has been attested 
by many eminent writers. " At Kaskaskia, far away in the valley 
of the Mississippi," Mr. Bancroft says, "the success of the mission 
was such, that marriages of the French emigrants were sometimes 
solemnized with the daughters of the Illinois according to the rites 
of the Catholic Church," while the Indians, he allows, were so thor- 
oughly converted, that not only did they all assemble "at early 
dawn" to assist at mass, and again " at evening, for instruction, 
for prayer, and to chant the hymns of the Church, . . . every con- 
vert confessed once in a fortnight," and " at the close of the day, 
parties would meet in the cabins to recite the rosMiy, in alternate 
choirs, and sing psalms into the night." By the end of the seven- 
teenth century, as Mr. Owen observes, "the total of the Confed- 
eracy (Six Nations) who professed the Roman Catholic religion 
was computed to exceed eight thousand." And this was but one 
instance of the success of Catholic missions. 

The unsuccessful character of the Protestant missions is strik- 
ingly illustrated by their results, as recorded by Protestant writers, 
and acknowledged by the missionaries themselves. Hildreth, the 
historian, says, "Eliot's scheme, for civilizing and Christianizing 
the Indians proved in the end an almost total failure." 

The historian Sparks, in his biography of .Eliot, says, " The 
natives of our forests derived no permanent benefit from the exer- 
tions of Mr. Eliot and others." And that Eliot himself fully real- 
ized his failure we have the witness of Conyers, another biographer, 
who relates that just before his death Eliot spoke of the dark cloud 
upon his work :imong the Indians. 

That the Quakers were equally unsuccessful, we have the testi- 
mony of Bancroft, who says : "The Quakers came among the Del- 
awares in the spirit of peace and brotherly love, and with sincerest 
wishes to benelit the Indian ; but the Quakers succeeded no better 
than the Puritans — not nearly as well as the Jesuits."* That the 
Catholic missions were the only successful as well as systematic 
attempts to Christianize the Indians is attested by John Ordinary 
Shea, whose authority on the subject of Indian history is so well 
recognized that he was chosen to write the articles on the North 
American Indians which appear in that standard work of reference, 
" Appleton's American Cyclopedia." 

He says in his " History of the Catholic Indian Missions," "that 

* See Marshall's " Christian Missions." 



222 

the tribes evangelized by the French and Spaniards subsist to this 
day, except where brought in contact with the colonists of Eng- 
land, and their allies or descendants ; while it is notorious that the 
tribes in the territory colonized by England have in man}' cases 
entirely disappeared and perished without ever having had the 
gospel preached to them. The Abnakis, Caughnawagas, Kaskas- 
kias, Mi amis, Ottawas, Chippeways, Arkansas, and the New Mex- 
ican tribes remain, and number faithful Christians ; but where are 
the Pequods, Narragansetts, the Mohegans, the Mattowax, the 
Lenape, the Powhattans? They live only in name in the rivers 
and mountains of our land." 

It will be in order to present other authorities sustaining this po- 
sition after Mr. Cooke has furnished the " every kind of evidence" 
of the falsity of Sadlier's statement which, as he says, is " known 
to many intelligent persons." 



CATHOLIC AID TO AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE. 

Sadlier's statement that "the independence of the United States 
was, in a great degree, secured by Catholic blood, talent, and 
treasure " is abundantl}' justified by the undisputed records of the 
Revolutionary epoch. If Mr. Cooke has not heard of the many 
and heavj' sacrifices made by Catholics to the patriot cause in 1775 
and all through the war for independence, nor of the incalculably 
valuable contribution to the success of that war made by France 
and Spain, the two great Catholic countries of Europe, it is in 
order to inquire where he received his education, that we may 
know and avoid the school in which he received his rations of 
elementary history. Charles Carroll, of. Carrol lton, is known in 
every reputable history as one of the leading Revolutionary spirits ; 
his name is among the immortal signers of the great Declaration 
of 1776. He was the grand representative of his fellow Catholics 
who stood in solid array for American liberty and independence, 
side by side with the Protestant patriots of Massachusetts and other 
States. As soon as Lexington gave the signal, Catholics volun- 
teered for the American patriot army in large numbers. If they 
were not found in much larger numbers in the ranks, the fact has 
its obvious explanation in another fact, namely, that severe penal 
laws against Catholics were still on the statute books of every 



223 

American colony. In 1775, Charles Carroll, of Carrollton, was 
the first Catholic permitted to hold any public office in Maryland, 
since the days of James II. Yet, in spite of the prevailing pro- 
scription of Catholics, the roll-call of distinguished American 
Revolutionary soldiers and sailors bears many honored Catholic 
names. The Catholic Indian tribes, by the way, rendered signal 
services to the Continental army. Orono, Me., is named to this 
day in memory of the Catholic Indian chieftain who brought the 
Penobscots to the support of the American cause, while the 
heathen Mohawks were helping the English armj T by their savage 
atrocities. 

The Northwestern territory was saved to the American cause 
as much by the heroic efforts and sacrifices of Rev. Peter Gibault, 
the Catholic priest of Kaskaskia, as by those of an}' other man. 
It was an attempt to capture Detroit, the centre of the English 
atrocities in the way of savage warfare, that La Balm and nearly 
the whole of his little Catholic force perished in 1780. Is it possi- 
ble that Mr. Cooke has never heard of the large numbers of Cath- 
olic military officers who, on the outbreak of the Revolutionary War, 
flocked from Europe, to throw their swords into the scale against 
England ? Their bravery and their sacrifices are part of the mili- 
tary record of every important battle of the Revolution, and the 
names of LaFayette, DeKalb, Kosciusko, and Pulaski are but the 
best remembered of a great company of Catholic chieftains who 
rendered services to the American cause of incalculable value. 
Green, in his " Historical View of the American Revolution," says : 

" One of the serious wants of our army, and which no native 
genius or rapid training could immediately supply, was the want 
of engineers. Washington's complaints of the incompetence of 
even the few who claimed the name, began with his first letter 
from Cambridsie to the president of Congress, and a year later he 
wrote to the Pennsylvania Committee of Safety that he had but 
one in whom he could place confidence. Here the necessity of 
looking to Europe for assistance was so apparent, that Congress 
directed the Commissioners at Paris to engage competent engineers, 
with the approbation of the French court, and with the assurance 
of proper rank and pay. It was to this judicious resolution that 
we owe the services of "Duportail, Launoy, Radiere, and Gouvion, 
officers of good standing in the French army, and who brought us 
what we needed most, science, combined with practical skill. It 
was under their direction that most of the important works of the 
war, from 1777 to its close, were constructed." 



224 

i 

The first commodore of the American nav} T , the man who first 

taught England to fear American prowess on the seas, was the 
Catholic Barry, whom Lord Howe in vain attempted to bribe to 
desert the patriotic cause. Nor have I ever, before Mr. Cooke 
essayed to do so, heard the fact questioned that the Catholic aid 
received from France and Spain was largely the cause of American 
success in the Revolutionary War. Not only officers, but arms 
and munitions of war, were sent from the government armories 
and stores of Catholic France. Marie Antoinette was a strong 
'friend of the American cause, and won the king over fully to its 
support. 

The first recognition of the united American colonies as a nation 
was by Catholic France in February, 1778, and soon after French 
armies and fleet were moving to Washington's assistance. France's 
two great and all-important contributions to the American cause 
were her fleet and her money ; the first broke the British command 
•of the seas ; the second kept the American patriot armies in the 
field. Stone states, in his work on " French Allies," that " the 
support of the American cause by the French cost the govern- 
ment of Louis XVI. one billion four hundred million livres " (or 
about $280,000,000) . The same author quotes the statement made 
by the Prince de Joinville, that " in the war of the American Revo- 
lution, France lost thirty-five thousand men and twent} T -five ships 
of the line." All this loss did not of course occur in America, 
nor in the waters of the United States, but was an aggregate grow- 
ing out of the alliance with the American Confederacy. That 
acknowledged authority, Appleton's "Encyclopedia," says: "The 
war of Independence would have been an ignominious failure but 
for foreign loans, and these were made mostly by France." Wash- 
ington, amid the sufferings of Valley Forge, issued a general order 
directing a national thanksgiving to God for the timely and impor- 
tant aid of France. 

The ports of Catholic Spain, as well as of Catholic France, were 
friendly bases of supplies for American privateers. From New 
Orleans, then a Spanish city, supplies for our armies were sent. 
From Catholic Madrid there came at another critical time blankets 
for ten regiments and a money gift. Later Spain also openly 
declared war against England in support of the Revolutionary 
cause, and the capture of Baton Rouge in September, 1780, and 
later of Pensacola, were two tremendous blows to British power 



225 

for which we owe thanks to the Catholic fleet of Spain under 
Galvez. It was by Spain's good offices and skilful diplomacy 
that Russia was detached from England, and Holland induced 
to take common cause with the American colonies. Thus on 
land and on sea alike Catholic friendship, valor, skill, and money 
conduced most powerfull}; to the final triumph of the Amer- 
ican cause at Yorktown. Mr. Cooke appears not to know this, 
and ignorantly presumes to say that Sadlier is guilty of "damna- 
ble falsehood." But Gen. Washington was not given to lying, 
and he has left on record his endorsement of Sadlier's state- 
ment on this point. In his "Alter Oiders," issued Oct. 20 (the 
day following the victory of Yorktown), Gen. Washington recog- 
nizes " the generous proofs which His Most Christian Majesty 
(the Catholic king of France) has given of his attachment to the 
cause of America," which " must force conviction on the minds of 
the most deceived of the enemy relative to the good consequences 
of the alliance, and inspire every citizen of the States with sen- 
timents of the most unalterable gratitude." He acknowledges the 
eminent services of the fleet commanded by an admiral whose 
fortune and talents insure great events," and of "an army of the 
most admirable composition both in officers and men." Replying, 
on a later occasion, to an address by Catholics, the Father of 
his Country said, " I presume that your fellow-citizens will not 
forget the patriotic part which 3 r ou took in the accomplishment 
of their revolution and the establishment of their government, 
or the important assistance which they received from a nation in 
which the Roman Catholic faith is professed." In view of this dec- 
laration b} - Gen. Washington, the highest possible contemporary 
authority, Mr. Cooke's blustering assertion that Sadlier tells a 
" damnable falsehood " when he states that American independence 
" was in a great degree secured by Catholic blood, talent, and treas- 
ure," must clearly be set clown alongside the many other exhibi- 
tions of assurance with which he has seen fit to disfigure this dis- 
cussion. 

R. J. J. 



226 



OPPRESSION OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN 
SWITZERLAND. 

Here we have another evidence of Mr. Cooke's poor equipment 
as a critic of historical text-books. The statement at which he 
assumes to sneer is absolutely true, and his sneer simply convicts 
him of an utter lack of acquaintance with contemporary Swiss 
history. As a contribution to his sadly neglected education 
on this matter, I will state that in the single canton of Ticino, 
the Catholic Church could not have fared much worse if it had 
been under a Russian government. Flourishing religious houses, 
with their schools, have been swept away at Ascona, Lugano, 
Mendrisie, and Bellinzona ; the diocesan seminary was forcibly 
suppressed at Pollegio. Parish priests have been driven from 
their parishes, and others, under the censures of the Church, 
intruded in their places b\ T military force. The bishop and those 
sent by him are forbidden the use of their jurisdiction, and par- 
ishes punished for receiving him solemnby. Prohibitions have 
been issued against missions, spiritual exercises, the publica- 
tion of the jubilee, and even the devotions of the Month of Mary, 
and in "free Switzerland" heavy fines are inflicted on men and 
women for the sole offence of practising their devotions or singing 
Catholic hymns in their own houses. 

The Swiss Catholic bishops have, within the period named, 
memorialized the Swiss Federal Assembly against the many laws 
passed to persecute and oppress the Catholic Church. 

The repeated and imploring appeals of clergy and people to the 
Federal Assembly against these laws have been utterty in vain. 
They have been supplemented by further decrees for the suppres- 
sion of episcopal jurisdiction within the canton. The Swiss bishops 
in their memorial recall the days of the Catacombs, and declare 
that the sad scenes of the early Church are renewed among the 
priests and the faithful of the canton Ticino. All intercourse 
with their lawful pastors is prohibited under pains and penalties, 
and has to be carried on in secret, and yet Mr. Cooke tells us that 
Switzerland is a country of religious freedom. 

It is impossible to present here all the details of the vexations 
and insolent persecutions against which the bishops raise their 



227 

voice. A few examples must suffice. In the canton of Aargau the 
use of the Catechism approved by the bishop has been forbidden. 
The well-known Bible History of Schuster, used throughout a large 
part of Europe in various languages, fared no better. These inso- 
lent, meddling legislators, probably most of them unbelievers, for- 
bade its use, and had another drawn up. Among a host of smaller 
vexations may be named ridiculous orders issued to the clergy, as 
to the length of their sermons, and prohibition to take part in any 
religious ceremony in a neighboring diocese. 

A far more serious assault on the Catholic Church in Switzerland 
is the interference with the training and education of the clergy over 
which the state has asserted the most arbitrary control, regulating 
the examinations and rejecting candidates for the priesthood at its 
own pleasure. The state even suppressed the theological seminary 
of Aargau because the bishop would not accept the text-books at 
the dictation of the civil authorities. 

A few more of the decrees affecting religion in Mr. Cooke's land 
of religious freedom may be given. All elections to benefices are 
subject to the civil authorities. No priest is permitted to perform 
any functions of his office, even temporarily, without permission of 
the government. 

Already in several cantons civil marriage is obligator}*, and by 
a refinement of insolence the parish priest is required, under heav}' 
penalties, to proclaim it in his own church. In Thurgau the Cath- 
olic schools have been entirely suppressed. The suppression of 
religious houses and the confiscation of their property to the state 
has gone on steadily . The bishops give a long, sad list of these 
sacrileges, many of the decrees bearing date so late as 18G9 and 
1870. 

Such facts give us a glimpse of a state of things certainly worse 
in some respects than the more violent persecutions of early Chris- 
tian times. And in view of these facts what shall we think of Mr. 
Cooke's assertions that in Switzerland " religious freedom is the 
law in all the cantons"? It certainly is the height of presumption 
for Mr. Cooke, in this amazing state of ignorance, to play the 
critic and correct the Catholic text-book writer. R. J. J. 



228 



TOLERATION IN MARYLAND. 

This assertion of Mr. Cooke has no warrant in history. If the 
charter of Maryland had secured religions toleration, which as a 
matter of fact it .did not, Lord Baltimore was undoubtedly the 
author of it, and he was a devout Catholic. If Mr. Cooke, there- 
fore, contrary to all historical evidence, insists on believing that it 
was all due to the charter that religious toleration prevailed in the 
colony of Maryland, then, as the charter was a document wholly 
of Catholic authorship, the credit belongs none the less to Catho- 
lics. Lord Baltimore's authorship of the charter is not in doubt. 
The Protestant historians Bozman and Rev. Ethan Allen both 
concede that Lord Baltimore prepared the charter. On the other 
hand, putting Mr. Cooke's unsupported say-so on one side, and 
accepting histoiy as it is, we find that from the moment the charter 
was granted, though religious toleration was not mentioned in it r 
the Catholic colonists who settled Maryland, led by the noble Sir 
George Calvert, practised the broadest toleration toward all the 
Christian sects. Bancroft, Griffith, Chambers, Kent, and Story, 
all recognize this fact and eulogize them for it. If the charter it- 
self secured religious toleration, why should these eminent authors, 
two of them among the foremost lawyers the country has pro- 
duced, praise the Maryland colonists for proclaiming and practis- 
ing a toleration which they were powerless to avoid? " Religious 
freedom," says Bancroft, "had ever been sacred on their soil." 
Judge Story declares of Lord Baltimore that he " introduced into 
his fundamental policy the doctrine of general toleration and equal- 
ity among Christian sects." The Catholic colonists from the outset 
allowed Protestants to settle among them, erect their own chapel, 
and enjoy their own order of worship. They gave a broad invita- 
tion to the Puritans of Massachusetts to come and reside with 
them, and Lord Baltimore even went so far as to appoint a Prot- 
estant governor, Col. Stone, over the colony. And in 1649 they 
passed the Toleration Act, not to inaugurate toleration, but to con- 
firm what they had practised all along. Mr. Davis, a Protestant 
writer, says of this Act of 1 649 : 

"The toleration which prevailed from the first, and for fifteen 
years later, was formally ratified by the voice of the people." 



229 

John Esten Cooke, in his history of Virginia ("The American 
Commonwealths" series, pages 210 and 211), sa3'S : 

"The truth is that the Roman Catholics of Mainland were the 
only tolerant people of that frightfully intolerant age. The gov- 
ernor, it has been seen, was forced to swear that he ' would not 
molest an}* person believing in Jesus Christ, for or in respect of 
religion.' But their toleration was accounted to them for a crime- 
The Puritan party were their sworn foes, and candid Mr. Bancroft 
says, 'had neither the gratitude to respect the rights of the gov- 
ernment by which they had been received and fostered, nor mag- 
nanimity to continue the toleration to which alone they were 
indebted for their residence in the -colony' ; for the furthest reach 
of their toleration when they came into power was to ' confirm the 
freedom of conscience, provided the liberty were not extended to 
' popery, prelacy, or licentiousness of opinion!' One reads this 
grim piece of humor with a queer sensation. There should be per- 
fect freedom of religion — except for Catholics, Church of England 
people, and others who differed with themselves in theology ! " 

Mr. George W. Cooke tells us that the Protestants owed nothing 
in Maryland to the first Catholic colonists, because their rights 
were secured to them by the charter, but Mr. John Esten Cooke 
demolishes this fiction (page 211) by saying: 

"The truth seems to be perfectly plain. The Catholics were in 
their right, and Clayborne and the rest were not. Neither the 
famous rebel, nor the Protestants of any description had any rights 
in Maryland save what were granted them by the Catholics. 
What they acquired beyond this they acquired by force." 

Again (page 181) this writer says : 

"Never was social fabric established on a larger or more liberal 
foundation than that of Maryland. All sects were protected, and 
the very oath of the governor was, ' I will not, by myself or any 
other, directly or indirectly molest any person professing to believe 
in Jesus Christ, for or in respect of religion.' This had naturally 
attracted the Puritans, both of New England and Virginia ; and 
their first act in Maryland was to come to blows with their hosts." 

And the same Protestant author (page 214), writing of the 
Puritans' violation of the tolerance shown them in Maryland, and 
their successful armed attack on the Catholic people of the colony, 
says further : 

"Maryland now belonged to the Puritans, and as the age was 
matter-of-fact, and opposition to the strongest was necessarily 



230 

treason, the Catholic leaders were sentenced to death, and four of 
them were then and there executed. Stone's life was only saved 
by the intercession of some personal friends. As to the 'Jesuit 
Fathers,' we are told that they were k hotly pursued and escaped to 
Virginia where they inhabited a mean low hut,' — which seems to 
have been a pleasant reflection." 

William Hand Browne, of Johns Hopkins University, in his 
"History of Maryland" (page 45), bears similar testimon}-. He 
says : 

"While as yet there was no spot in Christendom where religions 
belief was free, and when even the Commons of England had 
openly declared against toleration, he (Lord Baltimore) founded a 
community wherein no man was to be molested for his faith. At 
a time when absolutism had struck down representative govern- 
ment in England, and it was doubtful if a Parliament of freemen 
would ever meet again, he founded a community in which no laws 
were to be made without the consent of the freemen. The Ark aud 
the Dove were names of happy omen : the one saved from the gen- 
eral wreck the germs of political liberty, and the other bore the 
olive branch of religious peace." 

Describing in the same work (pages 79 and 80) the strongly 
contrasting intolerance shown by the Puritans when they obtained, 
by force, temporary control of the colony, this writer says : 

"The commissioners now went to work and issued writs of elec- 
tion to a General Assembly, writs of a tenor hitherto unknown in 
Maryland. No man of the Roman Catholic faith could be elected 
as a burgess, or even cast a vote. The Assembly obtained by this 
process of selection justified its choice. It at once repealed the 
Toleration Act of 1(54;), and enacted a new one more to its mind, 
which also bore the title, ' An Act Concerning Religion " ; but it 
was toleration with a difference. It provided that none who pro- 
fessed the Popish religion could be protected in the Province, but 
were to be restrained from the exercise thereof. For Protestants 
it provided that no one professing faith in Christ was to be 
restrained from the exercise of his religion, ' provided that this lib- 
erty be not extended to popery or prelacy [meaning the Church of 
England], nor to such as under the profession of Christ, hold forth 
and practise licentiousness.' That is, with the exception of the 
Roman Catholics and the Churchmen, together with the Brownists, 
Quakers and Anabaptists, and other miscellaneous Protestant sects 
aimed at by the third exclusion, all others might profess their faith 
without molestation. Surely this toleration might have been 
expressed in briefer phrase." 



231 

Summing up the whole of the early history of religious toleration 
and lack of toleration in the colony, the same author (page 185) 
says : 

"We may now place side by side the three tolerations of Mary- 
land. The toleration of the Proprietaries (the Catholic founders) 
lasted fifty years, and under it all believers in Christ were equal 
before the law, and all support to churches or ministers was volun- 
tary ; the Puritan toleration lasted six years, and included all but 
Papists, Prelatists (Episcopalians), and those who held objectiona- 
ble doctrines ; the Anglican toleration lasted eighty years, and had 
glebes (lands) and churches for the establishment, connivance for 
Dissenters, the penal law for Catholics, and for all the forty per 
poll (i % e. forty pounds of tobacco per poll were levied for the sup- 
port of the Anglican church and clergy) ." 

"It is a striking and instructive spectacle to behold, at this 
period," says Prof. Walters, of Philadelphia, " the Puritans perse- 
cuting their Protestant brethren in New England, the Episcopalians 
retorting the same severity on the Puritans in Virginia, and the 
Catholics, against whom all others were combined, forming in 
Maryland a sanctuary where all might worship, and none might 
oppress, and where even Protestants might find refuge from Prot- 
estant intolerance." "Yet these very men," he adds, "with in- 
gratitude still more odious than their injustice, projected the abro- 
gation not only of the Catholic worship, but of every part of that 
system of toleration under whose shelter they were enabled to 
conspire its downfall." — Marshall. 

The Protestant colonists of Maryland have themselves left us 
the most conclusive testimony to the tolerant policy of the Catholic 
founders in the document known as the Protestant Declaration, 
made in April, 1650, just after Lord Baltimore had signed the Tol- 
eration Act. This document, signed by tne Protestant Governor 
Stone, several Protestant privy councillors, and all the Protestant 
members of the Assembly of 1650, as well as by a large number 
of other Protestants in the colony, was addressed to Lord Bal- 
timore, and expressed to him the gratitude the}' felt for the fact 
that — in their own words — they enjoyed "all fitting and conven- 
ient freedom and liberty in the exercise of our (their) religion 
under his lordship's government and interest." This furnishes the 
best of proof, the direct declaration of the Protestant colonists 
themselves, publicly made at the time, that it was not to the char- 
ter nor solely to the Act of 1649, but to the uniformly broad and 



232 

tolerant policy of Lord Baltimore and the Catholic founders, that 
they were indebted for religious freedom, and that the political 
power of the colony was in Catholic hands. Indeed, as proprietor 
of the entire landed estate of the colony, Lord Baltimore absolutely 
controlled its entire policy. If he had chosen to withhold grants 
of land from all except Catholic settlers, it was within his power to 
have done so, thus excluding non-Catholics of every sect from ob- 
taining a foothold there. Without his consent no church or chapel 
could have been erected, for the land on which to build it could not 
have been obtained. 

The testimony is overwhelming that the Catholic founders of 
Maryland were a tolerant people, and that, of their own voluntary 
motion, they showed the largest liberality towards all Christian 
denominations. When, later on, the Puritan gained the ascend- 
anc}', Catholics were proscribed and persecuted. Still later again, 
when the Catholics once more held the stronger hand, toleration 
for all Christians was once more established and maintained. 
Clearly the charter did not secure religious toleration, or else these 
fluctuations from tolerance to persecution could not have been re- 
corded. Mr. Cooke cannot put the allegations of his no-Popery 
leaflets in the place of history and den}' to the Catholics of Maiy- 
land the honor which reputable historians have agreed in giving 
them. 

R. J. J. 



WHAT CATHOLICS HAVE DONE FOR SCIENCE. 

With regard to the Reformation and its influence on civilization, 
there are, of course, two differing views, the Catholic and the 
Protestant view. As Mr. Cooke has quoted Erasmus as the 
" greatest scholar of the Reformation period and as sometimes in 
sympathy with the reformers," Erasmus certainly should know 
what the Reformation did for letters and art. Yet Dr. Schaff, in 
his " History of the Christian Church," written from the Protes- 
tant stand-point, quotes Erasmus as saying " that he regarded the 
Reformation as a public calamity, which brought ruin to arts and 
letters, and anarchy to the Church." (Vol. VI., page 423.) Mr. 
Cooke's assertion that the Catholic Church has been the enemy of 
civilization and progress would be surprising, if it did not come 
from a man who has offered to substantiate eveiy word contained 



233 

in Swinton's "Outlines" by a consensus of unbiased historians, 
and who does not know the difference between the Inquisition and 
an indulgence. This strange jumbling of ideas is painfully ap- 
parent in Mr. Cooke's letter (pages 67 and 78, supra), where 
Mr. Cooke, having started out to vindicate Swinton's inter- 
pretation of the teachings and practice of the Catholic Church in 
the matter of indulgences, quotes, on page 67, the Congregation- 
alisms opinion of what Swinton saj's about the Inquisition, and 
evidently quotes it in the evident belief that an opinion bear- 
ing on the Inquisition applies equally well to an indulgence. With 
the same hopeless confusion of ideas Mr. Cooke elsewhere (page 78) 
writes about indulgences and absolution, as though the} - were iden- 
tical things ; for in order to support his view of indulgences, he 
quotes what Motley saj r s about absolution. So ill informed a man 
would naturally be the one to describe the Catholic Church as the 
enemy of liberty and civilization, when in truth mankind is pro- 
foundly indebted to her for both. It would, as a matter of fact, 
be more difficult to tell what the Church has not done for the cul- 
tivation of art, literature, and science, than to describe what she 
has done. The clamors of vulgar prejudice have represented the 
Catholic Church as inimical to the progress of these things, but I 
think authentic history will show that many of the greatest master- 
pieces in every department of literature and art have been directly 
produced under her inspiration and guardianship. 

" The children of the Church were the pioneers of every branch of 
science. The greatest names in astronomy, mathematics, mechan- 
ics, electricity, galvanism, chemistry, optics, thermotics, miner- 
alogy, and botany are Catholic ones. Yes, every branch of modern 
science owes, not only its origin, but the main part of its growth, 
to Catholic scientists, so that it can be said with siucerest truth 
that the sceptre of science belongs to the Church." — Brennan's 
" What Catholics Have Done for Science." 



INDEX 



Introductory Remarks 1 

A Sectarian Text-Book; Letter of the Rev. R. J. Johnson, 
showing Swinton's "Outlines of the World's History" to 
be Sectarian, by Protestant Authorities .... 16 

"Catholic Doctrine Caricatured"; Second Letter of the Rev. 
R. J. Johnson, showing how Swintou distorts the Doctrine 
of Indulgences as defined by the Church; the Opinions of 
leading Protestant Newspapers 23 

"Swinton's Inaccuracies"; Third Letter of the Rev. R. J. 
Johnson; the Merits of Swinton's "Outlines" as an 
Elementary Text-Book; Gen. U. S. Grant's Opinion of 
Swinton 31 

Letter of the Rev. George W. Cooke on Swinton's History; 
he declares that " a Consensus of Unbiased Historians 
will substantiate every word contained in Swinton's His- 
tory " % . . . 40 

"The Catholic Position"; Letter of the Rev. R. J. Johnson; 
Differences of Pact and Opinion; a Balancing of Authori- 
ties 45 

A Defence of Swinton; Letter of the Rev. George W. Cooke . 58 

The Defence of Swinton continued by the Rev. George \Y. 

Cooke 69 

Third Letter in Defence of Swinton by Rev. Mr. Cooke . . 80 

The Rev. R. J. Johnson replies to the Rev. Mr. Cooke; the 
Truth about Indulgences; the Catholic Church never 
taught that they were Pardons of Guilt or Licenses to 
commit Sin 86 

Letter of the Rev. George W. Cooke on "The Facts about 

Swinton's History" 98 

Letter of the Rev. George VV. Cooke on " Catholic Misrepre- 
sentations of Protestautism " 106 



336 

The Kev. George W. Cooke's Letters reviewed by the Rev. 
R. J. Johnson; Mr. Cooke's Promise to substantiate every 
Word in Swinton's Text-Book not fulfilled .... 113 

Other Authorities cited by the Rev. George W. Cooke examined 
by Rev. R. J. Johnson; Vicar-General Byrne's Views 
distorted; the Christian Union'' s Opinion .... 120 

Letter of the Rev. George W. Cooke; the Attitude of the 

Catholic Church towards the Public Schools . . . 131 

Popular Errors concerning Indulgences pointed out by the 
Rev. R. J. Johnson; Indulgences are not under the Con- 
trol of the Priesthood and cannot be used as a Lever for 
gaining Money; Motley's and Robertson's Standing as 
Unbiased Historians ........ 139 

Travellers' Tales; Letter of the Rev. R. J. Johnson showing 
how Scandalous Stories about the Catholic Church and 
Clergy are sent from Europe 151 

Some Side Issues; Letter of the Rev. R. J. Johnson on Paro- 
chial School Books and their Critics; a Glance at Mr. 
Edwin D. Mead's Pamphlet 161 

A Last Rejoinder from the Rev. Geo. W. Cooke . . . 168 

Bearing False Witness; Closing Letter of the Rev. R. J. John- 
son; Mr. Cooke's Alleged Quotations from the Pope's 
Encyclical Letter and from other Catholic Authorities 
shown not to be Genuine; Mr. Cooke directly challenged 
to prove them 170 

APPENDIX. 

"A Plea for Toleration"; a Dispassionate Review of the 
School Controversy by Mr. Henry Winn. Reprinted from 
the Boston Herald ........ 183 

Swinton's " Outlines " reviewed by Mr. Alpha Child, of Water- 
town, N. Y. ; its Glaring Errors exposed by a Protestant 
Critic. Reprinted from the Boston Transcript . . . 192 

"The Teaching of History"; an Editorial reprinted from 

the Christian Register 201 

The Doctrine of Indulgences; Extract from an Editorial re- 
printed from the Boston Advertiser 208 

"Indulgences Again"; an Editorial reprinted from the Boston 

Advertiser 209 



337 

The Public-School Question; a Paper by Prof. Charles Kendall 

Adams 212 

Catholic Indian Missions; the Bev. George W. Cooke's Asper- 
sions upon a Catholic Text-Book shown to be unfounded . 219 

Catholic Aid to American Independence; a Eeply to Mr. 

Cooke's Objections to a Statement in Sadlier's History . 222 

Oppression of the Catholic Church in Switzerland; another of 

Mr. Cooke's Criticisms answered 226 

Toleration in Maryland; how Lord Baltimore and the Catholic 
Founders of Maryland set the Example of Civil and Eeli- 
gious Liberty on this Continent 228 

What Catholics have done for Science; a Vulgar Prejudice 

corrected 232 



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